


Flirting with the dark (and other fables)

by fullyajar



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst and Humor, F/F, Gen, Hollstein - Freeform, LaFerry - Freeform, Lawstein rivalry, Multichapter, Zeta Society (brotp!), a bit of everything really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullyajar/pseuds/fullyajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura can't believe it. They <i>won</i>, right? Carmilla's alive, the Dean is dead, Lophiiformis was sent back to the pits of hell from whence it came, and for some unholy, unfathomable reason still her ragtag team isn't allowed even a moment to lick their wounds or kiss their lovers before a new - and chillingly old - terror rears its head and they’re right back in the middle of it all. </p><p>Tacky Hollstein, wacky LaFerry, snappy Lawstein, and chummy Zeta Society. Pre-Xmas Special. Rated T for mild sexual content and (bloody) action scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas (Special)! I started writing this before the announcement of Season 2 even came, so this story is a manifestation of my hopes and theories for the coming season. It’s a lot less angsty than the description makes it seem, by the way. Mostly it’s funny and action-packed and just a bit tacky – true to the awesome show. ;)

They don’t leave for reading week and never come back. Honestly, it’s not so surprising, because when the shock wears off, LaFontaine’s brows furrow with determination and their shoulders straighten like they’re standing to attention. For her part, all her suddenly terror-stricken body can seem to do is shift closer to Carmilla and draw comfort from her nearness.

No – that’s not what’s surprising.

What _is_ surprising, though, is that _Carmilla’s_ the one to convince _her_ to stay and fight.

All it takes is a quick, meaningful glance between LaFontaine and the vampire, a cryptic “You in?”, and a quick nod from Carmilla, and in the blink of an eye Carmilla leaps up and slams the door, while LaFontaine jumps up and shuts the open window to block out the sound of – yeah, she’s hearing that right – distant _screaming_.

“Perry,” LaFontaine murmurs when relative silence falls on the three of them. Laura doesn’t miss the way their face has suddenly lost all color.

“Text her, tell her to get inside or get _here,_ ” Carmilla commands. A beat, as LaFontaine scrambles for their phone, and Laura’s mind scrambles to keep up. Unsurprisingly, it short-circuits somewhat when Carmilla asks in a voice full of – albeit begrudging – concern: “What about Danny?”

“She’s hanging with Kirsch and the Zeta’s, and they’re armed with fireworks. They should be okay.”

A distant whizzing and explosive crackle reach their ears, following by a loud rumble as the earth shakes beneath them again.

LaFontaine grins lopsidedly. “Told ya.”

“Gotta hand it to her, she’s as ballsy as she is tall,” Carmilla replies with a grin, and seriously, the world may have just gone _completely_ topsy-turvy.

“What do we need?” LaFontaine asks after a beat.

“That USB boyfriend of yours.”

“He’s in the library, researching.”

“You’ll be okay?”

In response, LaFontaine reaches into their pocket, pulls out a butterfly knife, and opens it with an impressive flourish. “I think I’m good.” Without a second glance, they rush from the room and are gone. The door shuts behind them with an ominous click, Carmilla moves the closet in front of it, and silence falls.

Carmilla finally notices her silence – or, more accurately, her silent sputtering for words while her heart hammers to the beat of the rumbling outside.

“Laura, hey.” She sits down next to her, a comforting hand coming up on her knee. Without a thought, she grabs it and holds tight, her throat suddenly as tight as her grip.

“What are we doing _?_ ” she squeezes out.

Carmilla runs her other hand over their entwined fingers, a simple, comforting gesture they’ve never had between them before. “For now, we’re barricading ourselves in. Then hopefully JP will – “

“No, I mean, what are we _doing?_ ” She can’t help her voice from rising half an octave.

“What?”

“Why aren’t we running?” she squeaks, hating the sound as it comes out – as well as the underlying fear that makes her voice shake.

Carmilla, for her part, looks wholly confused. “Running?”

She nods tersely.

Carmilla tilts her head with an indulgent smile. “Come on, sugarcane. You’re the bravest little idiot of all of us. Don’t tell me that you’re suddenly afraid of a glorified supernatural lightbulb?”

“I’m not – ” She falters. She’s not afraid for _her._ “Things are different than before.”

“How?”

Carmilla’s hand is steady on her own, stroking – back and forth, back and forth – but it’s empty comfort to the rising panic. “You’re at the top of its kill list! _You!_ And you’re saying _fight?_ You would’ve called it suicide!”

“I did,” she concedes, but then tilts her head and raises a cheeky eyebrow. “And technically I was right.”

Her face is heating up, a mix between panic and slowly building rage. _Stupid, stupid vampire…_ “That’s _so_ not funny. You _died!_ ”

“Almost. But I fought then, of course I’ll fight now.”

“Why?” Laura demands. “Why would you do that?”

She tilts her head fondly, looking at her meaningfully.

For _her._

She’s catching on. But in this case, she really wish she wouldn’t.

“No,” she replies simply. “Things are different now! I’ve got _you_ now.” She’s yelling by now, but she’s beyond caring. The fact that it seems to leave Carmilla completely unfazed only adds fuel to the fire. “I’ve got _you –_ and you’re my – we’retog – we’ve got each other! And there’s no way in hell I’m letting you kill yourself trying to protect me again!”

Carmilla smiles fondly and tilts her head like a cat begging a petting. “You had me before, cupcake. You just didn’t know it.”

That is _so_ not helping.

“Screw you, you’re not dying on me again! I couldn’t – ”

Carmilla surges forward, pulls her close, and kisses her, and she feels the words die on her lips like Carmilla’s kiss is poisoning them.

But God, the poison does taste sweet.

When she pulls away, she can’t help but follow after, her eyes half-lidded and her breath ragged and yearning for more.

She snaps out of it when she catches Carmilla’s self-satisfied smirk, and her rambling reflex kicks in. “Don’t think just because I let you kiss me that I agree with your self-destructive, self-sacrificing – ”

Carmilla pulls her in again and hones in like she’s finding blood – and honestly, who’s she kidding with her half-hearted attempts to avoid the vampire’s lips? Because kissing Carmilla is like stopping time in its tracks, and sending all clocks running backwards.

As such, it feels like no time at all has passed when Carmilla pulls back again.

“Are you done yet?”

Laura shakes herself out of her stupor, silently willing away the blush on her cheeks. “Not quite, miss sassy-pants – not until you listen to my _completely_ grounded concerns about your suicidal tend – _Oh_.”

It’s not a kiss. Not quite. Because Carmilla’s also nipping the trail her lips leave along her neck, no doubt blemishing her skin crimson and leaving all kinds of marks she’ll have to explain away. It’s a testament to how far they’ve come that Laura isn’t the least bit worried she’ll actually bite her. Her breath hitches and a soft whine of pleasure escapes her lips before she cuts it off self-consciously.

_Damnit._

Carmilla chuckles. “How about now?” the vampire murmurs by her ear when she gets there.

Laura tightens her fingers on Carmilla’s elbow, half-heartedly keeping her at bay. “You are _so_ evil.”

Carmilla laughs, the tremors of her voice drowning out the still rumbling earth. “Ahem, vampire, remember?”

She scoffs. “Puh-lease, this is _all_ you.”

Silence falls, and slowly Carmilla pulls back. Her hands never leave Laura’s body, sliding from neck to shoulder to arm to fellow hands. Her eyes remain similarly trained on Laura’s.

“I know you’re scared. For me. And you’re right – the Light is probably after me. If not the Light, maybe some undead version of my mother,” she chuckles dryly, then pauses. “But we can’t run anymore.”

She marvels at the fact _she’s_ the one that wishes they could, and she almost understands Carmilla’s urge to run _before._ Things are different when you’ve got someone you care about.

Her voice is as small as she feels. “Can’t we?”

“No. We’ve come too far. We’ve got to finish it, once and for all.”

As though on cue, the rumbling and the alarm fall completely silent.

“What the – “

A scuffle of footsteps outside the door, then insistent knocking.

“Laura! Carmilla! Let us in! Hurry!”

Instantly, Carmilla shoves the closet back in its spot like it weighs nothing, and yanks open the door.

Kirsch, Danny, and LaFontaine practically fall inside. For LaFontaine, if their arms hadn’t been wrapped over Danny’s and Kirsch’s shoulders, it would have meant an instant faceplant. Luckily, the two tall friends stumble slightly, but hold up LaFontaine’s dead weight.

Laura blanches. All three of them are covered in scratches, dirt, and – of course – blood.

“The bed, hurry,” Kirsch grunts, and he and Danny stumble to Laura’s bed and deposit LaFontaine’s limp body on the pullover.

Laura can’t help the sudden memories of Danny similarly laying down Carmilla, and her heart jumps in her throat.

_Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead…_

She rushes forward to LaFontaine’s side. There’s a gash in their forehead dripping blood across their face, but their chest is rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

“What happened!?” she demands when Kirsch leans on the bedpost clutching his ribs and Danny rests against the closet door with her hands on her knees, letting blood drip from her swollen nose. Well, drip is an understatement. It practically gushes from her nostrils.

“Always the nose…” she mutters angrily, wiping at it with her sleeve.

“Danny!”

Danny looks up in surprise at her shrill tone.

“ _What happened?_ ”

She catches the towel Kirsch throws her way and presses it to her nose, making her barely understandable. “I don’t know,” is all she manages before her face contorts with pain as she tries to press her nose back in place.

Kirsch heaves and hisses in pain – Laura’s stomach protests at the blood oozing out between his fingers as he clutches his side with his already sprained elbow – but he continues for Danny. “We just found her – them,” he corrects, “like this, on the pavement. Passed out, bleeding. Phone in hand.”

“Where?”

Danny pipes up, lifting the blood-stained towel from her nose. “Close to the epicenter, a hundred meters or so from where it started again.”

“The epicenter? Of what?”

Danny blanches. “You don’t know?”

“We know the Light is back. We were making plans with LaFontaine to kill it.”

Kirsch breathes in sharply and tries to straighten, his frown as worrying as the way his voice shakes. “The Light isn’t back.”

To Laura’s surprise, Danny’s gaze leaves her face and holds Carmilla’s eyes instead. When she speaks, a hush falls over the room instantly.

“Carmilla, your _mother’s_ back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it begins!
> 
> Hours to write, seconds to comment! Tell me what you liked (or what you didn't, of course)!


	2. Chapter 2

“ _What?_ ”

“The Dean, she’s back.”

Carmilla pales – a feat Laura would have thought impossible given she’s already always deathly pale, no matter if it’s after blood-breakfast or days of not feeding. She shakes her head to clear it. No, yeah. She’s definitely paler.

And she’s shaking.

“Carm.”

The vampire takes her hand gratefully as she sits back onto the bed.

“How?” Her voice tremors as much as her hand.

“We don’t know,” Danny murmurs miserably. Laura wonders if her regretful expression comes from the unhappy news she brings or Laura’s hand in Carmilla’s, resting on her knee.

“She’s dead. She fell – the Light – ”

“We all saw her fall. But did we actually see her die?” Danny asks, not unkindly.

“I – ” Carmilla falters and frowns. Silence falls.

Finally, Carmilla breaks it with a word so soft, Laura barely catches it: “ – didn’t.”

Silence stretches again, and Laura brushes over Carmilla’s arm, squeezing her hand consolingly.

“What happened?” she asks carefully. “In the pit?”

Carmilla grimaces in distaste and tilts her head with a bitter quirk of an eyebrow.  “Well, for one, I clocked my mom and sent her straight into the Light,” she murmurs dryly.

“I saw that! It was awesome!” Kirsch’s smile is quickly cut off with a jab to the ribs that sends him keeling over – followed by Danny practically fluttering into his personal space in regret at her ill-placed punch, pressing a clean end of the towel against his ribs.

“Sorry,” they both murmur abashedly, and duck their head as Carmilla continues.

“When I jumped… I think she was there. I – I don’t know, it all happened really fast. Ell was there –“ The vampire’s eyes flick up to hers briefly before she looks away again. She squeezes her hand reassuringly. She remembers. She understands.

Carmilla seems to as well, and squeezes back.

“She was there, reaching out, beckoning. I could see her, constantly just out of reach, like a shadow on a bright sunset horizon. It made it really easy to walk into the light.

“But my mom was screaming… and something was clawing at me and fluttering and trying to escape, and I knew I couldn’t just walk into the light. So I brought the sword down and then –” She frowns. “ – then I couldn’t see anything anymore.”

“Nothing?”

“It was too bright.”

Laura remembers – a light like being trapped on the wrong side of an eclipse – and Carmilla’s shadow like the moon in front of it, shielding them as she stabbed the Light.

Carmilla shakes her head, her brows etched in confusion. “I couldn’t see anything and I was frozen, like the sword was sucking all the life out of me, putting it into Lophiiformes and dimming it. Killing it.” She pauses, then adds with a wry, apologetic smile,  “And you know – killing me along with it.”

Laura opens her mouth to either retort something snippy about needing to have a serious conversation – not interrupted by kisses – about Carmilla’s tendency to gloss-over near-death experiences, or to offer comfort, she honestly isn’t sure – but Carmilla isn’t finished.

“Then the sword shook one last time, and stopped. My mother was silent. Ell was gone.”  Her smile is simultaneously bitter and rueful. “And then, the movie ends.”

Silence falls over the four of them. Their eyes, hooded by three pairs of frowning eyebrows, snap back to Carmilla when she adds:

“Just…”

Laura licks her lips. “Yes?”

Carmilla’s eyes go dark, and her fingers turn to marble in Laura’s hand. “Laughter.”

Her voice is barely a whisper. “ _What_?”

Carmilla loosens her hand, but the way her hand still shakes is no better than the steel grip of terror. “When I stabbed the Light, I couldn’t see _anything_ , but I could hear. And I remember – laughter.” She looks around, catching Kirsch’s and Danny’s stunned gazes.  “Not the good kind either, but like – dark. Deep and rumbling, like the aftershocks we’ve been having. Like – ”

“Like a million baritone voices cackling in unison.”

Laura and Carmilla look up in shock as Danny swallows over the acrid words. The redhead shares a quick, worried look with Kirsch, who nods tensely.

“We heard it too,” Kirsch continues for her.

“What? How?” Laura demands. She doesn’t think she would have missed _that,_ despite the fact she thinks she might have been screaming.

“Not when Carmilla did. But today.”

Kirsch nods. “From the pit.”

“From the bowels of hell, more like,” Danny adds with a shudder.

“Explain,” Laura and Carmilla demand in unison.

“We were lobbing fireworks into the pit again – like we did when we found Carmilla – taking down the building and hoping we’d be able to save something else like the Blade of Hastur or the sub-basement or something. And then suddenly that rumbling started, worse than anything before – ”

 “Yeah, we felt it too.”

Danny’s nose is dripping blood onto the towel again, but she pays it no mind.  “And the alarm went off.”

“And then there was this blinding light at the bottom of the pit and the rumbling turned into terrible, terrible laughter.”

Silence falls on them, and a chill runs down their spines.

“What happened next?”

“Well, most of the Zeta’s scrammed,” Kirsch admits with an embarrassed smirk.

“Although, to be fair – with good reason… Because there was something _there…_ at the bottom of the pit.”

Carmilla’s eyes are wide and searching. Hoping. Dreading. “My mother?”

A glimmer of true fear runs across Danny’s features. “Something like her.”

Kirsch nudges her. “Show them.” Danny reaches into her pocket and unlocks her phone. “See, while I was shitting myself and looking for the nearest exit, this kick-ass carrot-top got her shit together, pulled me down, and recorded all of it.”

“Took a page out of your book, Laura,” Danny says with a wink as she holds the phone between them and presses play.

“ _Oh my God! What is that!?”_ Kirsch’s voice screeches through the tiny speakers, and Danny hurries to turn the volume down.

“ _No, like_ _what **is**_ _that?”_

The lower volume doesn’t do much good. Kirsch is practically hysterical. Kirsch – currently-in-the-room-Kirsch – grimaces.

“Do I really sound like that?”

“Ssh!”

 _“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my – **oomph**_.” The camera jitters and shakes, and then the earth tilts toward them and the camera stills – just catching Kirsch’s stunned face hovering inches from a livid-looking Danny’s cleavage.

Despite the video still playing, no doubt about to unveil some majorly scarring supernatural terrors, Carmilla snorts. Danny glares at her.

“Screw you, he fell on top of me.”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow. “I thought you said she pulled you down?” she asks Kirsch.

“She did.”

“On top of her.”

Carmilla smirks. Danny fumes. Kirsch looks between them.

“But in, like, a bro way. No homo.”

All eyes roll up to Kirsch. And blink. Slowly.

“Oh. Right.” Kirsch barks a dry laugh. “I mean, not like in a – ” He gestures first to himself, and then Danny “bro-homo… _romo_ way… if you get what I mean?”

 Danny rolls her eyes. “Kirsch, shut the hell up.”

As though on cue, video-Danny says – hisses – the same thing and clamps a hand over Kirsch’s mouth.

“ _Ssh!”_

Kirsch complies, but when Danny releases him, his voice is shaking and jolting as much as he is. “ _But can you hear – do you hear it too!?”_

_“Yes, I hear it – will you stop mov – Kirsch!”_

The image spins away – presumably, knocked away by Kirsch – and the phone comes to rest on its side – with a perfect view of the unbelievably bright sun shining from the bottom of the pit.

“Is that – ”

“Just wait for it.”

They all stare at the phone – the image brightening slowly, incrementally, until even just the light from the small screen is nearly blinding.

“That’s the Hungry Light,” Laura whispers.

As though on cue, the grumbling, double-voiced laugh vibrates out of the small speakers.

“ _Fools!”_ a deep, rumbling voice shouts around a laugh. Laura’s blood freezes. Carmilla’s hand tightens in hers.

“Mother.”

 _“You thought you killed me. You thought you won?”_ Another bone-crunching laugh. _“…I’m only getting started.”_

Silence falls.

Then –

_“Hear me!”_

The image shakes and crackles with static as though the soundwaves are too much for the phone to handle.

_“Bring me Carmilla. Bring me the blood of my blood – my treacherous, lying, thankless daughter.”_

All eyes turn to the vampire. Her expression is hard as stone – as is her grip on Laura’s hand. 

 _“Do not fight me,”_ the bodiless voice continues. _“Do not even try. I warned you – I am not what I was. The Light is not what it was.”_ The light pulses on the screen, and bars of the static break the unblemished whiteness. “ _You cannot win.”_

Laura swallows thickly and glances up at the forlorn looks of defeat on Kirsch and Danny’s faces.

_“I will kill one virgin every day you do not surrender to me.”_

Kirsch’s hand crawls uncertainly to Danny’s shoulder, and Danny puts a steadying hand on his.

_“You have three days before I come for you.”_

The light dims – gradually and languidly, like the creature is traveling step-by-step down a spiral staircase into the bowels of the purgatory she came from.

A scratching sound comes from the speakers, and suddenly Danny’s and Kirsch’s alabaster, bloodless faces swim into view.

“ _Danny –_ ”

“ _Run._ ”

The view cuts off.

“We ran, but I think we alerted your mother – or whatever that thing was – somehow, because everything began shaking and flying around and launching itself at us. I nearly got skewered by a piece of rebar, and Danny got knocked down by a keg.” He snorts. “Talk about holding your liquor right?”

Unfortunately – and predictably – the joke falls flat, and silence stretches over the group huddled around the screen.

Suddenly, the door to the room slams open, stopping their collective hearts – because _holy crap,_ bad timing – and a completely frazzled and panicked Perry scrambles inside.

“Where is she? Is she here?” she demands, her voice so high she’s pretty sure it’s approaching frequencies only dogs – and most likely, Carmilla – can hear.

Before anyone answers, Perry spots LaFontaine on the bed, and rushes forward, nearly knocking Kirsch over in her haste to be by LaFontaine’s side.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Perry’s hands tighten on LaFontaine’s limp wrists and she shakes them. “You idiot!” She turns to Danny with murder in her eyes. “ _What_ happened?”

This time, Danny doesn’t require prompting – the utterly terrifying glint in Perry’s eyes is enough motivation for her to start scrambling for the explanation. “Uh, we don’t know.” Perry’s eyes flash. “We don’t! We found them like this!”

 “And you have no idea what attacked her? How she got knocked out?”

Laura raises an eyebrow. Panic, it seems, trumps proper pronouns.

Danny gasps uncertainly for an answer, and looks helplessly at Kirsch, who shrugs equally helplessly and then winces at the movement. Perry just fumes at them both.

Then –

“Probably had something to do with the bicycle rack that was launched at my head,” the prone redhead murmurs with a pained grunt.

Perry gasps in surprise and rushes forward.

“LaFontaine!”

“Hi,” LaFontaine says with a lopsided – if slightly pained – grin.

“Are you alright?”

LaFontaine massages their forehead and eyes the blood on their fingertips warily. “I think so. Yeah, I’m good.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Perry demands, raising three fingers.

“Six.”

Perry looks up at Danny helplessly. “You broke her.”

“Me?”

LaFontaine laughs. “I’m kidding. I see three – in two eyes. Six. See? Anatomy joke.” They grimace encouragingly, and Perry lays a hand against their cheek. “I’m fine.”

Perry’s hand pulls back and turns into a sharp slap.

“Ow! What the – ”

Her voice is approaching ultrasound again. “You tell _me_ to stay inside and then you go out and try to play the hero?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think – ”

Perry lunges forward, and Laura’s briefly terrified she’s going to _head-butt_  them of all things, but then Perry lets out a shaky, relieved sound and kisses LaFontaine full on the mouth.

Kirsch guffaws and earns himself a sharp look and a quick shove in the shoulder from Danny. Carmilla purses her lips in amusement, but has the tact to look away.

And Laura?

She’s smiling like an idiot.

When they pull apart, she can’t decide who looks more shocked.

LaFontaine breaks the silence. “Well, that was – ”

 _Not completely unexpected_ , Laura silently finishes for them with a giddy smile.

Neither Perry nor LaFontaine try to finish the sentence, and merely break out in mirrored, brilliantly glowing smiles.

“So _what_ were you doing outside when you explicitly told me to stay _inside?_ ” Perry finally demands.

Yup, that’s more like the Perry they all know – mother-mode back to full power. 

To everyone’s surprise, Carmilla saves a sputtering LaFontaine. “Uhm, probably partly my fault,” she admits, shrugging sheepishly. “I just didn’t think they’d get hurt on their way _to_ the library – ”

“The library!” Perry squeals. “I _knew_ I could find you there. But when I went to look, you weren’t there!”

 “Wait, you went to the library?”

“Yes, you didn’t text me back, and I got worried, so I went looking for you.”

LaFontaine’s eyes grow as big as saucers. “ _Alone_?”

Perry tuts disapprovingly. “You don’t get to lecture me on recklessness, trouble-magnet.”

“Okay, I guess you have a point but – ”

Perry waves a hand dismissively. “It wasn’t so dangerous. I had to fight off a few Webster’s dictionaries with a protractor, but only the volume E through M got seriously hurt. I think the worst was finding JP.”

“ _What?!”_ LaFontaine sits up and grimaces.

Perry places a comforting hand on LaFontaine’s arm. “He’s alright, don’t worry.” She wipes her lips self-consciously, and they look away from each other, suddenly remembering the USB-bound boy, and by the looks of it – not liking the twinge of guilt it brings them both in the wake of their kiss.

“So what happened?”

“I found him – ” Perry’s voice shakes and she looks away bashfully, “ – but not you.”

LaFontaine’s frown – previously scrunched with worry and a hint of guilt – smoothes out and is replaced with a look of such affection, Laura’s sure if Perry would dare to lock gazes at that moment, they’d all very quickly need to scram to give the two some privacy or risk being unwitting third wheels to a party they were _not_ invited to.

Laura clears her throat. “Do you have JP, Perry?”

Perry snaps out of it. “Yes.” Laura takes the USB from her outstretched hand and boots up her laptop.

“Maybe he can help us make sense of this mess.”

“And what mess is that exactly?” Perry asks with raised eyebrows, eyeing Danny’s and Kirsch’s injuries like she’s only now noticing them.

Silence falls, and they all look away uncertainly. Finally, Carmilla sighs and shrugs nonchalantly.

“Oh, you know, some kind of demonic mix of my mother and Lophiiformes giving us three days to deliver me to her or else she’ll most likely level the whole campus, kill all of you, and lock me back in an underground coffin for the next millennium,” she drawls morosely.

“ _What?!”_ LaFontaine and Perry screech in unison.

“Also, she’s going to kill one virgin every day we dawdle, so, there’s that,” Kirsch adds unhappily.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Laura concedes with a grim smile. Carmilla tightens her grip on her hand in her lap.

Her laptop pings to life.

LaFontaine jumps up, and then grimaces in regret. “JP, you there?”

**LaFontaine! Thank goodness you’re alright!**

LaFontaine grins affectionately. “Right back at ya, buddy.” The light of the camera springs to life, and Perry subtly slides her hand out of LaFontaine’s.

Laura purses her lips at the discreet change, but doesn’t comment. “We could use your help,” she says instead.

JP’s typing is instant. **With the Dean slash Lophiiformes? Yes, I heard everything when I was in the library.**

“What is it?”

**I’m not sure – no lore I’ve found can fully explain it. What happened when you stabbed the light, Carmilla?**

They quickly fill him in. Laura does most of the talking, keeping her hand firm in Carmilla’s, and drawing comforting circles with her thumb.

JP takes a moment. Then: **I see. I think I might understand what happened. Carmilla, do you have the Blade of Hastur with you so I can examine it?**

“No, I don’t. I wasn’t exactly in a state to take it with me.”

“We didn’t see it either,” Kirsch adds.

**No matter. My theory can stand without it.**

LaFontaine tries to sit up, shushing Perry’s reactive fussing sternly. “Your theory?”

**When the Dean fell into the light, Lophiiformes devoured her – as it did previous sacrifices. However, the Dean is an ancient, formidable creature, and wouldn’t have gone down without a fight – hence the screaming, Carmilla. You stabbed Lophiiformes just as it was winning from your mother, and in its weakness, it submitted to her will.**

“So this is _my_ fault?” Carmilla’s voice is hurt and incensed.

“No!” Five voices sound in unison, and Carmilla’s wounded expression smoothes in surprise.

 **No,** JP repeats. **Chances are if you hadn’t stabbed Lophiiformes, it would have absorbed your mother’s strength and become nearly invincible – and you would surely have died trying to kill it.**

“Oh.” Carmilla nods in understanding and acceptance – and Laura really needs to have a talk with her about this accepting the notion of death thing she keeps doing – but then she tenses and frowns in puzzlement. “About that… why didn’t I?”

**Die?**

“Yeah.”

**I’m not sure. It’s why I wanted to see the sword.**

“Why?”

**The Blade of Hastur is made for one use only, and it would have been absorbed – along with Carmilla’s soul – had it been fully successful. As it is, at least some part of Lophiiformes survived – as did Carmilla… which makes me think the sword did too. It never completed its purpose, you see?**

“So, let me get this straight.” Danny unfolds her arms and gestures to the open window animatedly. “Lophiiformes lost to the Dean because Carmilla stabbed the Light.” She ticks off a finger. “The Blade of Hastur only weakened Lophiiformes, which is why both the sword and Carmilla survived.” Another. “And the Dean absorbed the power of Lophiiformes.” The last finger, and then she pauses, puzzled. “To become what exactly?”

**Something completely unheard of. An absolute abomination. A mix of age-old vampire and ancient, soul-sucking power.**

Laura smacks her lips. “Peachy.”

Silence falls on them as they try to wrap their minds around the new information.

“So,” LaFontaine finally says. “The sword will still kill her, right?” A beat. “ _Her_? Is it still a her?”

Carmilla purses her lips. “Does it matter?”

“Hey, she-slash-he-slash-they may be a royal, supernatural bitch-monster, but mislabeling is hurtful,” LaFontaine defends adamantly.

“Then, call the bitch _him._ Hurt away. Hope he chokes on his tears.”

Carmilla’s comment is so unexpected and sharp, all five of them look up with identical, comical expressions of surprise that quickly turn into smiles of amusement and – despite the gravity of the situation and the reality of facing a supernatural demonic mix of vampire and ancient power – a fit of free, suddenly exuberant laughter.

At the moment, exempting a few scratches and bruises, they’re all alright. They _still_ won, despite the return of the Dean. And they’re together.

And all that definitely deserves some relieved laughter.

Carmilla looks up in surprise, and – Laura’s stunned to see – cracks a smile as well. She squeezes her hand and smiles at her fondly.

“What should we call _her_ then?” LaFontaine asks finally. No one contends the pronouns.

“Is that really the priority right now?” Laura murmurs with a reproachful smile.

LaFontaine continues undeterred. “AnglerVamp?”

Danny raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Lophiiformes means Anglerfish.” They look  around to see five very confused faces staring at them. “I thought you knew that.”

“ _You’re_ the biology major,” Danny points out.

A beat, then LaFontaine perks up again. “LophiiforMother?”

“Oh my God, _veto,_ ” Carmilla interrupts with a scowl.

LaFontaine, apparently, isn’t done. “The Light That Laughed?”

“No, that was _not_ funny,” Danny interjects while Kirsch quakes on his feet.

LaFontaine scrunches their eyebrows thoughtfully, clearly searching for more ludicrous names.

 “How about the Dean That Devours?” Perry finally pipes up.

 Silence falls. They all search for dissent, testing the name in their minds. No one disagrees.

“The Dean That Devours it is,” LaFontaine says with an impressed smile at Perry.

Unfortunately, apparently, LaFontaine smiles too wide, and quickly clutches their head and grimaces. Though his smile doesn’t falter for a second, Kirsch tries to straighten and hisses in pain, and Danny gently dabs her nose and checks the bloody towel.

Laura takes in her ragtag gang of gingers – plus Kirsch – and smiles ruefully.

“Guys, maybe you should head home. Get some R&R? Some medication?”

Perry affectionately runs her fingers through LaFontaine’s fringe and nods in agreement.

Danny, Kirsch, and LaFontaine aren’t as easily swayed and jump into identical tirades about making a plan, defending the base, keeping safe, not splitting up, and taking down the Dean once and for all.

“Guys! Calm the hell down!” Laura shouts. They snap their mouths shut. “We’ll regroup tomorrow.”

“Think of a plan,” Perry offers.

 **I’ll research all night if I have to!** JP interjects excitedly.

“That would be more impressive if you actually had to sleep like the rest of us,” Danny points out.

**Rude.**

“I’m taking you with me, JP,” LaFontaine says, and tries to get off the bed.

Predictably, they sway like an unstable Christmas tree and four pairs of arms shoot out to steady them.

Also, predictably, it’s Perry’s that are the quickest.

“And I’mtaking _you_ with _me_ ,” she proclaims simply. LaFontaine looks like they’re about to protest, but they stumble and, with an affectionate smile, gratefully drape their arm over Perry’s shoulder.

 **See you tomorrow,** JP types, and LaFontaine disconnects him.

“Is it safe to walk home?” Laura asks suddenly.

Perry smiles reassuringly. “We’re in the same building. We’ll be fine.”

“And we’re both hella fast,” Danny quips with a friendly punch to Kirsch’s shoulder, who smiles confidently, despite the way he’s still cringing at the cut and bruise on his ribs, and holding his arms gingerly. It wasn’t broken, but the sprain still pains him.

“What about the rest of Silas?”

Danny laughs. “You think anyone stuck around? This spread like wildfire. When we were bringing LaFontaine here, the Zeta’s and the Summer Society were already organizing an evacuation.”

Kirsch shrugs coolly. “We’re on our own.”

A vampire and five already variably injured humans against one ancient supernatural monster. Right.

“Well, I suppose that’s good,” she says carefully. “Means we won’t have a mob at our doorstep demanding Carmilla’s head on a pike.”

“Also, the Dean is going to have to put in some real effort into finding a virgin with the whole student population on vacation,” LaFontaine says with a confident laugh. Then they still.

Laura raises an eyebrow.

Her four friends give her a meaningful look.

“So.” LaFontaine clears their throat and looks awkwardly at Danny, who finishes for them: “Yeah. So, um, be careful, Laura.”

_For God’s sake…_

She sends them a seething glare. “Gee, _thanks_ , guys,” she fumes.

Carmilla snorts, and covers it up with a cough. Laura turns her glare to her instead.

“Bye, guys,” Perry says as they cross the threshold.

“Don’t kill Carmilla tonight, we’ll probably still need her!” LaFontaine calls, craning their neck as they disappear from view.

Carmilla is still lightly sniggering.

Not killing her suddenly seems like a tall order.

“Hey, you think there’s anyone left in my building?” Kirsch pipes up suddenly. “All the Zeta’s have probably left by now...” He trails off anxiously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You can stay with me,” Danny offers. “Extra mattress.”

“Awesome. Thanks, bro.” He bounces from the room, still clutching his side, and Danny turns to follow. Laura shakes her head with a smile and turns away.

“Laura.”

She looks up. Danny is looking uncharacteristically out of place – as out of place as her nose and the scrunched up bloody towel she’s still clutching.

“I – um… We didn’t really… Not since – ” Her eyes flick briefly to Carmilla, who’s hovering somewhere behind her, before they find hers again and Danny clears her throat self-consciously. “I wanted – I mean…” She sighs and gives up. Finally she settles for: “Are you okay?”

She frowns, taking in Danny’s vulnerable expression with concern.

“I’m – ”

Carmilla slips her hand into hers from behind, and Laura’s can’t decide whether to be touched or miffed at her possessiveness.

“She’s fine,” the vampire states curtly.

Danny’s eyes find their entwined fingers, and a wounded look of displeasure flashes across her face before she steels her jaw, mutters an unhappy “Right,” and turns to leave.

Laura glances at their hands.

Yeah. She’s miffed. Definitely miffed.

“Carm – “ she mutters sharply, but Carmilla interrupts her.

“Danny, wait.”

Danny freezes, barely turning and glaring down at the vampire from the corner of her eyes.

“What?” she growls.

“Thank you.”

Danny recoils in surprise, and frowns deeply. “What?”

“Thank you,” Carmilla repeats, her voice reluctant but sincere. “You and that Zeta Omega Mu idiot. Chances are I would’ve been buried alive for another few centuries, together with who _knows_ what – if you hadn’t found me.”

Laura's irritation with the vampire dissipates instantly, and she lets her hold her hand, giving up on disentangling their fingers for Danny’s benefit.

Danny’s irritation also soothes somewhat, and though her eyes still flick briefly to their entwined hands, she nods curtly.

“You would have done the same.”

Carmilla nods back. “Right,” she replies.

Danny frowns curiously.

“See you tomorrow,” Laura says after a moment, and steps forward to take the bloody towel from her. Her fingers brush briefly, comfortingly, over the back of Danny’s hand, and Danny smiles affectionately.

“Bye.”

The door closes behind her softly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hours to write, seconds to comment! Tell me what you liked (or what you didn't, of course)! Got any favorite lines? :)  
> Next one will be up Tuesday! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason for the T rating - mild sexual content. Enjoy it! ;)

When the room empties and silence falls, Laura sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She throws the bloodstained towel into the corner and lets her head drop in exhaustion. _What a day._

Carmilla moves against her like it’s the most natural thing in the world – like there isn’t a supernatural demon-mix of the Dean and the Devouring Light lurking at the edges of their minds, and it’s just the two of them, spending Reading Week alone in their room without a care in the world.

“Hey,” she murmurs at her side as her arms come around her, and Laura leans into her embrace thankfully.

“Hi.” The smile that tugs at her lips despite the worries nagging at her mind is as unexpected as the kiss Carmilla brushes on her cheek – soothing, sweet, and positively chaste.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” A beat. “Are you?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mother’s back,” she observes quietly.

Carmilla stiffens briefly. “I know.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Are you shrinking me?” Carmilla teases – a deflection if she’s ever seen one.

“No, I’m girlfriending you.”

Carmilla’s eyes widen. Laura takes the fact that the corners of her mouth raise in tandem with her eyebrows as a positive sign, and when the vampire straight-out smiles, her heart calms its suddenly rapid thumping.

Because, despite her bravado, calling her sometimes-murderous, life-saving, hell-raising vampire roommate her girlfriend? Pretty big deal.

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you.” Carmilla’s smile is as teasing as the fingers drawing patterns on the small of her back – _beneath_ her shirt.

“Well, if you want me to stop having romantic notions of you, you should probably stop holding me…” Carmilla’s arms tighten. “And kissing me…” She leans closer, barely an inch between their lips. “And – ” two fingers click open her bra and her breath hitches “ – doing _that_.”

The hands move back down, leaving her bra open like a suggestion.

“But you don’t want me to stop.”

Carmilla’s eyes are bright and luminous in the dark, and if she squints and turns her imagination up to ten, she thinks she can _just_ imagine a darkness _within_ the darkness – a feline pupil contracting and adjusting to the light as she moves closer.

“Now who’s being presumptuous?”

Carmilla ghosts her lips over hers, but when Laura cranes her neck to give her better access, the vampire backs away with a wicked smile.

“Well, do you?”

“Do I what?” she breathes back. She can’t keep her eyelids from fluttering as her heart flutters in her chest in anticipation.

“Want me to stop.”

Carmilla’s hands tighten at the small of her back and she leans down again, teasing Laura with her closeness but staying just out of reach.

It’s a cat and mouse game. And she really kind of doesn’twant to be the mouse anymore.

So with an aggravated huff, she pulls Carmilla’s face down to her own and kisses her – hard, passionate, and with a finality that leaves no room for argument or further teasing from this terribly frustrating glorified housecat toying with her.

When she pulls back, she’s pleased to see Carmilla still has her lips puckered in surprise and her eyes half-lidded. She opens them, gazing down at her with something between awe and approval.

“What do _you_ think?” Laura asks.

“I think I’m really going to like being your girlfriend.”

Her heart shoots into her throat and pushes out a completely embarrassing noise somewhere between a squeal and a squeak. Her eyes shoot open. Carmilla tilts her head fondly.

“I – where did that – that was – ”

 “Completely adorable.”

When Carmilla kisses her again, she stops rambling, kisses back wholeheartedly – and this time, doesn’t stop. Not when her legs bump the bed behind her and Carmilla presses her down against it. Not when both their hands start wandering, clutching at hair at the back of their necks and at backs beneath shirts, and glancing over bare stomachs and flushed cheeks. Not when Carmilla slips a hand under her loose bra and palms her breast – granted, she pulls back for just a second to gasp her surprise (and approval), but the kissing happens again pretty darn quickly so that barely counts as stopping.

Because, like Carmilla so cockily said before – she really doesn’t want to stop.

Only when she tugs at the hem of Carmilla’s top and the fabric slides between them as it comes off do they finally pull apart. When Carmilla catches her eyes again – hovering over her, as she was, but this time shirtless – she stills, and simply raises an eyebrow and the hem of Laura’s shirt.

Laura smiles and raises her arms in answer.

The kissing is decidedly more heated after that. Heck, all of it is. Despite suddenly both being shirtless (and Laura’s bra behaving rather indecently on top of that), the room feels anything but chilly.

There comes a moment when the temperature peaks, and the air suddenly stills. Her breath comes out raggedly, and Carmilla holds her gaze. It feels like the point of no return, and though her heart is hammering nervously, she knows where this is going – and she wants it to.

“Do you want to keep going?” Carmilla’s voice is kinder and softer than she’s ever heard it, a note of reverence in it that’s reflected in the unassuming curve of her hand as it ghosts over her hip and the way her stomach hovers a hair’s breadth from touching her own.

She swallows thickly and nods, canting her hip into Carmilla’s hand and pressing her chest against her.

“You know there’s no rush,” Carmilla murmurs against her neck, even while her hands wander across her bare skin.

Laura laughs, a wry sound she covers with a teasing smile. “There kind of is…” she murmurs. Carmilla stills, pulls back, and raises an eyebrow quizzically, and Laura scrunches her lips in compliance. “Well, your centuries-old mother just absorbed the power of the Hungry Light and morphed them into some kind of vampire demon snacking on the blood of virgins, and you are literally at the top of her kill list.”

“Well, if she’s going after the blood of virgins, I have some bad news for mommy dearest, because that ship sailed back in 1703,” Carmilla teases with a wicked smile.

Laura clicks her tongue. “Carm, I’m serious.”

Carmilla quiets. “I know.”

“There’s a pretty big chance one or both of us is going to be in mortal peril again by tomorrow night. So, I’d really rather not let this chance go by.”

 _Again,_ she thinks silently.

Carmilla’s face falls – and _that’s_ unexpected, because didn’t she just admit she wanted to sleep with her?

Something fearful and skittish flashes across the vampire’s face, and she gestures between them. “Is that why…?” Though she tries to cover it, her tone is uncertain, sharp.

Laura frowns in confusion. _That’s not weird. At all._

Carmilla pulls away – not much, just half an inch, but the press of her stomach against her, the graze of her hand at her back, and invitation of a knee between her thighs is instantly and sorely missed.

“Carmilla, what – ”

“No, right,” she interrupts softly, avoiding her eyes. “If you might die tomorrow, there’s enough reason – there’s enough rush…” She steels her jaw and smiles bitterly, “I mean, no one wants to die a virgin, right?”

_Wait, what?!_

“No! What? That’s not what I – gosh no!”

Carmilla’s suddenly searching her face again with fearful, luminous eyes, and Laura can feel her fingers tighten nervously at her neck where her hand is still tangled in her hair – but suddenly, she can’t do anything but laugh. Loudly and uninhibitedly. and with enough force that her body jolts on the bed and takes back the space Carmilla had created between them.

Honestly, it’s probably the best thing she could have done, because instantly Carmilla’s fingers loosen and the surprise on her face ousts any lingering fear. It’s so comical, another bout of laughter hits her before the last one dies down.

“You stupid, stupid vampire…” she murmurs when her breathing is settled again, and pulls Carmilla back against her. “You are such an idiot.”

“And you’re cryptic and confusing!” Carmilla counters grumpily.

Laura smiles and brushes her fingers across Carmilla’s cheek – a calming, consoling touch.  

“Of course I don’t want to die a virgin – I don’t want to die at all – so I guess it _is_ like that, but not in a sleep-with-you-just-in-case-we-die-tomorrow way!” She giggles again, the thought so ridiculous it’s a wonder it even made it into Carmilla’s mind. “Totally not like that.”

“Then, what?” Carmilla’s tone is tremulous enough to bring her back from her giggles. She takes a breath and twists so they’re lying side by side in the single bed. 

“Before you went and pulled your heroic vampire crap – which, still not completely forgiven, by the way – I was pretty clueless about what you felt about me. And, worse, I was blind to what I felt about _you._ ”

Carmilla’s eyes glow and hold her own, unblinking.

“And then you were gone and it was too late.”

She’s not sure if the vampire even needs to breathe, but if she does, right now – she isn’t.

“And this is a chance.” She runs a hand soothingly across the vampire’s collarbone, tracing to her neck and her jawline, and Carmilla’s breath hitches. She smiles jokingly. “Not a chance to sleep together or to just lose my virginity or something – that’s _so_ not what I mean and the fact you’d think that makes me just a _little_ bit worried about your sanity and your constant bravado – ”

“Hey!” Carmilla exclaims indignantly. “What are you – ”

“ – and the way you feel about me.”

That shuts her up. For about a half a second.

“What? How?” Her frown is all tension and uncertainty.

“No, not in a bad way…” she purrs soothingly, and nudges her nose against Carmilla’s with a smile. “Just that… you were worriedthat’s what I meant, weren’t you?”

“No.”

A beat.

“Yes.”

Her smile grows ten sizes, as does her heart.

 _Because you care, you stupid vampire. And the thought that I might not care as much – that_ this, _what we were about to do, doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to you – scared you._

Carmilla searches her eyes, and Laura can see the worry and vulnerability she can now place. She understands. And it’s the uncertainty that she sees that makes her decide to spare Carmilla her no doubt spot-on insight and internal commentary.

“Well, it’s not what I meant,” she says simply, and pulls her closer and kisses her instead. Carmilla’s eyes are still bright as a cat’s in the darkness when she pulls away. “What I meant is – this is a second chance for us, when my cluelessness and your suicidal tendencies almost botched the first. And I don’t want to wake up in two days and have missed my chance again. Because now, unlike last time – I know what I want.”

Carmilla’s smile is hopeful and so surprisingly vulnerable it’s a wonder her heart doesn’t burst at the sight. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” She pulls Carmilla back on top of her and cants her hips against her thigh to prove her point. The vampire lets out a sharp sound of surprise. “Definitely.”

Carmilla’s one hand holds her up so she’s hovering above her the other slides to her side, inching ever so slowly to where her bra is hanging on for dear life.

Honestly, far too slowly.

“Are you sure?”

Laura rolls her eyes. “God, sometimes you can definitely tell you were born in the 17th century.”

Carmilla’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

 “Stop being such a useless, overly chivalrous vampire and just kiss me.”

“But you’re completely s– “

Laura bucks her hips, and Carmilla loses her stability and falls with a soft _oomph_ on top of her. Her left hand slides up to its destination and Laura wraps her arms around her before she can move her hand or her body, because both are exactly where they need to be.

Now, just her lips.

“Shut up,” she murmurs, and fixes that too.

Later, when she slips her hand beneath the band of her underwear and Laura breathes out a sigh of desire as her body moves into her touch of its own accord, Carmilla doesn’t ask her if she’s sure again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hours to write, seconds to comment! Tell me what you liked (or what you didn't, of course)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter to laugh! Next ones will almost all be exciting & action packed, so take this chance while you can!

Laura has a plan. Sort of. It’s got steps and everything.

Step one: Somehow get back the Blade of Hastur.

Step two: Stab the bitch with it without letting anyone die.

Laura squints at the piece of paper.

The plan looks a lot less impressive written down.

Also, a lot _less_ like a plan than expected. More like a vague suggestion of an outline for a Christmas wishlist. 

“Inspiring,” LaFontaine says dryly when they and Perry arrive.

“About as far as we got, to be honest,” Perry reminds them.

“But I’ve got an excuse: I may have brain damage,” LaFontaine quips with a grin.

“That’s not funny,” Perry admonishes.

“She kept me up _all_ night,” LaFontaine grumbles as Perry reaches up and gently presses back a corner of the bandage on LaFontaine’s forehead. Perry’s hand lingers, and LaFontaine smiles tenderly, their disgruntled expression gone within a second.

Laura raises an eyebrow in confusion. Perhaps it’s because – she admits – her mind may be more occupied with the topic today than other days – but _what?_ “Uhm…”

Perry’s eyes go wide, and she pulls her hand back. “No, not like that! _God_ no…” She laughs awkwardly. “I kept waking LaFontaine up, you know? Concussion protocol?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Did you guys get any sleep?” LaFontaine asks as they sit on Laura’s bed.

Laura catches Carmilla’s eyes and quickly looks away with a furtive grin. Carmilla purses her lips with an equally sly smile, smoothing the sheets she’s still lounging on and tucking Laura’s underwear sneakily between the bed and the wall.

“Not much,” she answers simply – and completely honestly.

She sits down on Carmilla’s bed, and the vampire shifts into her space. She nudges against her neck like a cat and when Perry fusses over the cut on LaFontaine’s forehead again, places a kiss by her ear and murmurs happily: “Best night of not sleeping _ever_.”

Laura turns her head, catches Carmilla’s gaze, and smiles brilliantly.

Neither Perry nor LaFontaine picks up on the subtle exchange.

LaFontaine shakes the piece of paper with ‘the plan’ on it. “Technically, we did get _a bit_ further than this,” they say slowly.

Perry flicks a bit of lint off her knee tersely. “No, we’re not doing that.”

“We’re not doing what?” Danny says from the doorway as she saunters in. Her nose is impressively bruised. It looks like a blueberry exploded under her skin, dripped down the bridge of her nose, and got smeared under her eye sockets. She eyes Carmilla warily, and the vampire places her head on Laura’s shoulder like a cat claiming their owner.

Laura rolls her eyes. _Typical._

“LaFontaine had an idea on how to get the Blade of Hastur back.”

She leans against the bedpost. “Lay it on me.”

“ _Bad_ idea…” Perry murmurs.

“Yeah, you’re probably not going to like it much,” LaFontaine admits.

Danny shrugs. “Well, we’ve got nothing.”

“We?”

“Oh, Kirsch is on his way. We didn’t spend much time brainstorming, though. He conked out as soon as his head hit the bed, and kept me up all night.”

Laura raises an eyebrow again. Is she _really_ imagining things now _?_

“With his snoring,” Danny elaborates quickly.

“Did no one in this room get a wink of sleep?” Perry asks incredulously.

“Why? What were _you_ two doing?” Danny asks Laura and Carmilla sharply.

“Jumping-jacks,” Carmilla drawls indifferently. Laura twitches her shoulder and dislodges the languid vampire. Carmilla rolls off unconcernedly and drapes herself on Laura’s lap instead – which, _seriously_? She didn’t sign up for dating a _cat._

“We were talking,” Laura corrects.

It’s not a complete lie. They did talk – _after._

She turns away from Danny’s suspicious gaze and asks, “So, what’s your plan?”

LaFontaine sits up, plugs in the USB, and boots up Laura’s computer.

“Well, your ‘Step One’ is spot-on – if a bit vague – but as far as we know, the Blade of Hastur is in the pit – along with the Dean That Devours. We’ll need to lure her out first.”

“With what?”

“Something she wants.”

“Let me guess.” Carmilla raises a finger and turns it to herself with a flourish. “ _Moi_?”

“I thought that initially, but you’re the only one strong enough to wield the sword, so no.”

“What else does the Dean want?” Laura asks.

“Who knows?” Carmilla turns on her lap. “Eternal life… A good lay…”

Laura rolls her eyes, but holds back from pushing Carmilla off her lap. “Not helping.”

“Virgins,” LaFontaine states matter-of-factly.

“Well, I wasn’t far off,” Carmilla points out with a wicked smile.

LaFontaine turns to Laura seriously.

“So, are you up for being bait again?”

“Why am I always everyone’s go-to virgin sacrifice?” she replies with a huff and an eye roll. LaFontaine raises an eyebrow, and Laura raises a hand. “You know, never mind, don’t answer that. Yes. Fine.” Her answer is snappy.

Unfortunately, so are Danny’s and Carmilla’s: “No way.”

Danny raises a surprised eyebrow but continues, “Not unless there’s someone to protect her.”

“Who would’ve thought – us seeing eye to eye,” Carmilla purrs with a begrudging smile and Laura looks at her in surprise – not just agreeing with Danny, but admitting it? Perhaps there’s a chance for them after all.

But Carmilla’s smile quickly turns malicious. “Figuratively speaking, of course. How’s the air up there?”

Right. That’s more like them.

“Clear enough to see _anything_ coming – “ Danny flexes her arms threateningly “ – like danger to Laura.”

 “Great, then add ‘walking crow’s nest’ to your CV and let the adults do the thinking,” Carmilla drones disinterestedly, turning away from Danny dismissively.

Danny takes a warning step closer, fists balled at her sides. “And while you all are thinking, she’ll get eaten.”

Carmilla laughs, a disdainful, cold sound. “That’s why we _think_ of a different way to do this. See how that works, Goliath?”

“A way that involves you _sacrificing_ yourself for her again, by any chance?” she spits with venom. “Empty friggin’ words, because _newsflash,_ Belle: the beast still won.”

Carmilla tenses and hisses and looks like she’s about the jump to her feet and claw at Danny’s face, but LaFontaine steps between the two – a brave feat – and puts up two placating hands.

“Guys! Will you just hear me out before you start killing each other over who’s more deserving to kiss the ground Laura walks on, alright?”

Laura glares at LaFontaine, because _really?_

Carmilla and Danny glare at each other for a moment longer, but then Carmilla turns away and examines her nails nonchalantly, refusing to engage in Danny’s battle of wills – and apparently, frustrating Danny to wit’s end because of it. She’s practically frothing at the mouth.

LaFontaine eyes the tall redhead apprehensively, but opens their mouth to continue with the plan.

Carmilla’s first. “You know, all this – ” she waves vaguely at the posse gathered around “ – a barely coherent plan featuring Laura the vampire bait and an untrained bunch of teenagers going up against a supernatural being – sounds oddly familiar.” She pauses, mock thoughtful. “Oh, right, because you tried that before. On _me._ ”

“And it worked,” Laura points out with a smirk. She doesn’t miss the way Carmilla’s lips twitch in irritation.

Note to self: getting kidnapped by ‘an untrained bunch of teenagers’ – clearly a sore point for the vampire.

Carmilla brushes it off and tilts her head cockily. “It worked because I wanted to kiss you, not kill you. I doubt my mother will share that sentiment.” She frowns. “If she does, we definitely have some things to talk out before I off her.”

“We’re not going to off her,” LaFontaine interjects with a frustrated sigh. “At least, not right now. If you will _please_ let me finish with the plan…?”

Carmilla huffs in disgruntled agreement and lays her head back down on Laura’s lap.

She doesn’t have the heart to refuse her, and gently runs her fingers through her hair. Carmilla smiles, closes her eyes in pleasure, and _– wait_ did she just _purr?_

“Okay, the plan,” LaFontaine says, interrupting Laura’s eager and surprised study of Carmilla’s bi-species existence. “So, we have our virgin – a virgin for real, this time,” LaFontaine says with a laugh, no doubt remembering their own and Kirsch’s unfortunate kidnapping – despite neither of them fully fitting the requirements.

Laura’s hand stills her gentle stroking. _Wait._ She frowns and looks down at Carmilla, whose eyes are wide open again. She sees her own abrupt realization and doubt in Carmilla’s incredulous expression, and the vampire bites her lip to hold back something between a laugh and a groan.

_Crap._

“Uhm, LaFontaine?” she interrupts awkwardly, and clears her throat. “The virgin thing’s more of a recommendation type of thing than like… a total prerequisite, right?”

LaFontaine raises a confused eyebrow, and Christ, she really hopes she’s wrong. “Uhm, why?”

“You know, just… ahem… _checking_ things…” Laura holds their gaze meaningfully and gestures subtly to the rumpled sheets beneath her. Carmilla – who’s _smirking_ – winks tactlessly. Laura could kill her. Or spray her with water. It would probably be more effective.

LaFontaine’s eyes widen comically, and they clear their throat awkwardly. “Right. Uh, JP?”

The computer screen clicks to life.

**Give me a minute.**

Silence falls. And falls hard.

LaFontaine takes in the rumpled sheets with renewed interest, and, after a second, gives her and Carmilla an approving smile.

_Oh God._

Someone kill her now.

She glances at Carmilla, but the sly vampire is smiling wickedly and actively avoiding her eyes – as well as everyone else’s.

Which – probably a good thing, because though Perry’s still frowning in confusion and trying to get a not-so-clueless LaFontaine to explain what’s going on, Danny _has_ picked up on why the information’s relevant, and she’s staring daggers at Carmilla.

The silence stretches. Far too long.

Now Danny’s staring at _her_. And at her hand frozen in Carmilla’s hair.

_Shit._

She looks away, untangles her fingers, and crosses her arms innocently. But she doubts she’s fooling anyone, because the way her cheeks are heating up, she wouldn’t be surprised if she’s blushing like a prepubescent schoolgirl.

She clears her throat and turns to the computer. “Ahem… need any help, JP?”

**Just a second.**

“You sure? Cause chances are I could search just as fast using, you know, Bing on Internet Explorer or something equally ineffective and _slow…_ ” she hisses urgently.

**Again, rude.**

He falls silent. Then, thankfully – finally – he interrupts the tense quiet.

**Can’t find anything. But I wouldn’t risk it. The Hungry Light slash the Dean has room to be picky, doesn’t she?**

“And she did specifically say she’s going after virgins this time…” LaFontaine adds unhappily.

**So to be on the safe side, Laura: the chastity of the bait slash sacrifice is for real this time.**

_Well, double crap._

“So…” she starts awkwardly.

“So…?” Perry repeats innocently. “’So’ what?”

LaFontaine massages their neck, looking anywhere but at Laura. Danny, on the other hand, is begging for Laura’s gaze like a kicked puppy. She avoids her adamantly. She looks helplessly at Carmilla, but the vampire is still avoiding her eyes – and trying very, very hard to subdue her laughter. She’s practically shaking on her lap.

_Evil, evil, evil._

 “Please don’t make me say it,” she murmurs – apparently too softly, because –

“What was that?” Perry pipes up cluelessly.

She looks up at LaFontaine, who, in their defense, does _try_. “Uhm, we need to a find a virgin for – I mean, _someone else_ for virgin bait.”

“Why?” Perry is _not_ catching on, and she waves a hand at Laura dismissively. “Laura’s fine, isn’t she?”

“ _Yes_ , she is,” Carmilla murmurs with a lewd chuckle so only Laura can hear.

Laura shoves her, and the brunette falls off her lap and the bed with a very un-vampire-like snort – though she does land on all fours.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” she murmurs as she continues to laugh, “but this is _priceless_.”

 “Oh, you are just _enjoying_ this, aren’t you?” she mutters back between pursed lips. Carmilla just smiles and shrugs.

Perry looks between them and blinks. “Will _someone_ please explain what’s happening?”

Laura sends a pleading look at LaFontaine, who bites their lip and scratches their forehead before turning awkwardly to Perry and carefully saying: “Uhm, Laura kind of lost – well, _losing_ is the wrong word, but she and Carmilla – I mean, she’s – ”

Laura sighs in defeat.

“ – kind of not a virgin anymore,” she finally admits through tight teeth.

Perry’s eyebrows shoot up so high they’re at a risk of flying off her forehead. “You’re…” She glances at Carmilla, who’s hiding her face behind her hand and shaking with laughter. “Oh.”

Laura groans. “This couldn’t possibly get more mortifying.”

As though on cue, the door to the room bangs open and Kirsch waltzes in, twirling two stakes – sharpened drumsticks by the look of them – in his hands and sheathing them in makeshift scabbards at his waist with a flourish.

“Sorry I’m late, Demon-Dean Take Down Team. What did I miss?” He grins suggestively and winks at Laura. “Is the little nerd hottie going to be virgin vampire bait again?”

“Vampire bait, _clearly_ ,” Danny hisses through clenched teeth, shooting Carmilla a seething glare. “Virgin: not anymore.”

In Kirsch’s defense, it doesn’t take him _all_ that much longer than it took Perry.

Only a little.

His response though? Decidedly less subdued that Perry’s.

“Dude, up top,” he cheers, holding out his hand to Carmilla. Laura raises a quizzical eyebrow at the fact that to Kirsch, Carmilla is apparently ‘the dude’ in their relationship – which – outdated and offensive much? And, if they _were_ to go with that sexist metaphor, also incredibly inaccurate considering it was Laura that wouldn’t settle for ‘I’m beat, babe’, last night…

Carmilla glares at him, her mirth apparently forgotten. “Seriously? We’re not friends.”

Kirsch takes a step back, crest-fallen. “Hey, I saved your life.”

Laura smiles indulgently – she understands the puppy nickname Carmilla has given him now.

But of course, cats and dogs have history as old as time, and Carmilla tilts her head and leans forward predatorily. “Then the fact that I’m not eating you makes us even.”

“Carmilla,” Laura chastises, and Carmilla pulls back. The reaction is so instant, so conditioned, and so conceding, she can’t help it: “Good kitty,” she adds with a scratch in Carmilla’s neck.

Carmilla turns to her slowly and scoffs incredulously, a glint of something between disbelief and admiration in her eyes. Apparently, admiration wins – and changes to a decidedly _different_ emotion when Carmilla’s eyes flick down to her lips.

Perry clears her throat, and Carmilla pulls back and drops her head on the bed with an irritated and highly overdramatic eye-roll. “Uhm, sorry. But we still need a virgin.”

“How about you?” Laura asks.

“Sorry.” She shrugs with a reminiscent smile. “High school sweetheart.”

Laura glances at LaFontaine, who’s also, strangely enough, smiling nostalgically. _No way…_ “Was it…?”

Perry’s eyes bulge, and LaFontaine also looks mildly horrified. “ _No!_ God, what is it with everyone thinking – ” she glances at the computer and cuts off with a self-conscious cough. “Never mind.”

“LaFontaine?” she asks, though she thinks she knows the answer.

As expected, LaFontaine isn’t shy, and grins enthusiastically. “I had my own crush on a TA when I was a Freshman – one that didn’t stop at romantic rescues and heart eyes,” she adds with a pointed look at Danny.  

Danny clenches her fist at her side. “Hey, not cool.”

“Sorry.” LaFontaine shrugs. “Just never got why you didn’t put your moves on innocent little Laura – ”

 _Hold on just a minute._ “I’m _right_ here.”

LaFontaine continues unfazed: “ – especially because I _know_ you’ve got them – ” their grin turns mildly lewd “ – as does half the Summer Society.”

“LaFontaine!” Perry admonishes sharply.

“What? The girls – _and_ guys – on the softball team _talk_ , alright?”

Laura looks at Danny, and this time it’s _her_ turn to look mortified and avoid her eyes. Apparently, she muses silently, within the Summer Society and beyond, Danny  _herself_ is considered the prize at the end of the Adonis hunt – whether you win the hunt or not.

Kirsch grins like an idiot and shoulders Danny. “You are _such_ a bro.”

Danny presses two fingers gingerly to the bridge of her nose. “Not helping, Kirsch.”

Silence falls, everyone – excluding Danny, who’s still blushing and most likely trying to grasp as some small shred of dignity – quietly giving themselves a brief moment of nostalgia. Carmilla looks up at her, and Laura doesn’t need to see her smile to know what she’s thinking of.

Her mind has been there and back again too often to count.

But then, like some kind of sex-magnet, Perry’s eyes hone in on Carmilla’s hand on her knee and the classically-Carmilla seduction eyes she’s suddenly turned on to full power, and Laura clears her throat and breaks the silence. “So, uhm, now that we’ve established everyone’s sexual history… can we _please_ move on?”

“Please,” Danny echoes with a sheepish grimace.

Perry clears her throat. “Uhm, not to be crude or insensitive or anything, but…” She fidgets with her sleeve, and casts a somewhat guilty look at Carmilla, “Well, considering virginity is _usually_ lost between humans, _and_ given the fact we would be using Laura’s debatable virginity to take down a _vampire_ and it would really be a shame to lose that chance because of some kind of – admittedly speciesist – irony… does sleeping with a vampire even count?”

There’s a beat of stunned silence. Then –

“It counted,” she and Carmilla snap in unison.

Carmilla catches her gaze and smiles appreciatively. When she slides her hand back to her knee, Laura takes it and smiles back, her mind as full of memories as Carmilla’s eyes are.

_Hell yes, it counted._

A gagging noise snaps them out of their admittedly poorly timed moment.

“Sorry, just got really nauseous all of a sudden,” Danny barks with a glare.

“Touché,” Carmilla purrs back, utterly unfazed.

A brief silence falls.

“So, we still need a virgin,” LaFontaine finally reminds them.

A beat.

It seems they’re out of those.

Also – had she really been the only virgin of the group since God _knows_ how long?

Suddenly, Kirsch clears his throat and asks hesitantly, “Uhm, does it, like, _have_ to be a girl?”

“No, she told me herself she only took girls because it was traditional,” Carmilla says.

“Well, at least she isn’t as sexist as she is obsessed with virginity,” LaFontaine muses with a smile.

Kirsch swallows uncertainly. “Then, how about me?”

“Still needs to be a virgin, bro,” Danny teases.

He winces, and Laura gets the feeling it isn’t from Danny’s light punch. He looks at the ground and shifts awkwardly. “Yeah, I know,” he says softly.

“What?”

“Danny,” Kirsch murmurs with a pointed look, “I _know_.”

Danny’s eyebrows shoot up – she’s not the only one.

“ _Oh_.”

A short silence falls. Kirsch swallows abashedly and shuffles his feet.

 “Well, good on you, Kirsch,” Perry says finally, patting his hand. “No need to lose your virginity prematurely.”

Laura could be imaging it, but she _thinks_ Perry sends a disapproving look in her direction. She shrugs it off with a stubborn smile. Her choices are her own, and she’d choose last night all over again.

Danny is looking at Kirsch like she’s never met him before. “Seriously?”

“Don’t judge, bro.”

“I’m – not.” And she isn’t, because her expression is simply… startled. Laura smiles to herself. Given her track record, Danny is more likely to just become extremely overprotective of Kirsch than to judge him.

Kirsch shrugs. “Everyone always assumes, you know. The Zeta’s too. But I want to wait for someone I love.”

Danny’s surprised expression turns to a sincere, doting smile, and yeah, Laura thinks she might be right about the protective instinct. “That’s – surprisingly sweet.”

Kirsch hunches his shoulders defensively, but leans closer to Danny nonetheless. “Yeah, well.”

Silence falls.

“Okay. So we’ve got our virgin.” LaFontaine winks at Kirsch, who smiles uncertainly but seems to accept he’s not being judged by anyone in the room. “First step, check. Now… the rest.” They stop short, glaring at the group from under their fringe preemptively. “If you guys can be quiet for five friggin’ seconds…”

No one dares interrupt. LaFontaine smiles in satisfaction and leans forward.

“Alright then, this is what we do...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hours to write, seconds to comment! Any comment at all! What was your favorite line? :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Count yourselves lucky this chapter, I had no internet until today so I almost couldn't have posted it! Also, this was originally two chapters, so one of the longest of the whole work! 
> 
> Romance and action and maybe a smidgen of angst! Enjoy! :)

It's not a particularly graceful plan. Even Laura, ever the optimist to the point of – she admits – naivety, can see that much. LaFontaine did their best, but the plan is dangerous and reckless and will probably earn _them_ nothing but blisters and dirty fingernails, and Kirsch and Danny nothing but a stitch in their sides and seriously sore legs – and that’s if they’re all very lucky – but sadly, it's the only one they've got.

"This is a bad idea," Carmilla grunts with an unhappy scowl.

Laura looks away from the empty street she was scrutinizing for signs of life, and side-eyes the vampire. "You said that."

Carmilla flicks away a bug on her shoe. "It bears repeating."

Laura sighs and lets go of the branch she was holding to keep her view clear. It springs loose and slaps Carmilla in the face, who pulls back in alarm, topples back on her butt, and then huffs in disapproval at Laura’s sly smile.

"It's seriously a bad idea,” she repeats with more authority when she sits back up on her haunches. “The worst I've seen in a long time. And I was around when Napoleon decided to invade Poland."

 _Really.._. She shifts where she’s crouched on the ground, turns back to the view, and squints. "Well, he had a few victories before he lost."

Carmilla snorts. "Daffodil, if you're holding out for extending that metaphor for this whole fight, and his supposed victories is what we're going for, I seriously overestimated your sanity –” she eyes Laura with a twinkle in her eyes “ – and your historical knowledge."

"Hey, just because you're as old as time doesn't mean we all are...” She tilts her head and shoulders Carmilla playfully. The girl returns the lighthearted gesture, but it comes off more as rub than a nudge, and Laura can’t help thinking of – what else? – a cat. She grins. “Though it does mean I'm going to lose really badly at Trivial Pursuit against you, once all this dies down."

Carmilla smiles slyly, and shifts closer.

"Oh, once we take down my mother, there no way we're going to be playing Trivial Pursuit."

Carmilla’s shoulder is against hers, but the vampire is intently scrutinizing the scene before them, and Laura really doesn’t want to assume the hand on her back rubbing gently is anything but innocent…

But her breath _is_ a little faster with Carmilla’s closeness.

She clears her throat. "Not a fan?"

Carmilla’s sly smile widens, and she shifts and re-finds her balance – using Laura’s bare knee as a support.

Laura raises an eyebrow and eyes the hand on her knee, but Carmilla just glances briefly at her, looks her up and down – not checking her out… right? – and then turns back casually to the shrub they’re hiding behind with a cryptic, “I have better things to do."

Laura’s other eyebrow comes up too.

"Oh?"

"Mhm."

Carmilla’s hand hasn’t moved.

"Care to fill me in?"

"Not particularly...” The vampire glances at her briefly, grins wryly and tightens her hand playfully. “Cave-diving used to be pretty high up, but..."

Laura taps Carmilla’s arm admonishingly.

"Don’t joke about that.”

“Next time I’ll bring a flashlight that can survive more than 5K underwater instead of that useless Home Depot piece of crap I brought.”

She snorts at that, but keeps the Home Depot joke to herself. Apparently, even lesbian _vampires_ need their fix…

“I'm serious,” she says sternly instead.

"So am I.”

Not surprisingly, Carmilla’s smile is anything but.

"Come on, what's on your bucket list? Once you're free from her evil clutches and all that."

Carmilla’s smile falls and she stares into the distance wistfully. "Venice."

She doesn’t know what she’d expected – anything from returning to her home in Styria, to getting a tattoo – but _Venice?_

“Really?”

“Mhmm.” Carmilla looks down and snaps a stray twig. “Maman never let me go, even when it became the most elegant and refined city in Europe in the 18th century.”

“Wow, you _are_ old.”

“No, _she_ is,” Carmilla returns sharply. “She only remembered its economic decline and the bouts of Black Death in the 15 th century, not the way it completely pulled itself out of the darkness.” Her voice is bitter and angry, and Laura wonders if there’s more to her words than reminiscing about Venice. She places her hand on the one on her knee calmingly.

“Mmm. Venice does have a certain charm…”

The smile in her voice and the hand on hers seems to do the trick, because Carmilla pulls out of her sullen memories of her mother and smiles up at her.

“Who knows…” She scoots closer and twists Laura around so she falls lightly to her knees and they’re face-to-face. “Maybe I’ll take you waltzing at a masquerade and finally have that date the redheads interrupted last time.” She loops an arm around her back and lifts a hand in invitation.

Laura’s heart shoots into her throat. “That would be nice.”

When she doesn’t take the offered hand, Carmilla slides it to the back of her neck and pulls her in for a kiss instead – which, she thinks as she smiles into the kiss, _totally_ what she’d been hoping for.

“Venice is only second on the bucket list though,” Carmilla murmurs when she pulls back. Her hand is still at the back of her neck, drawing small circles, while Laura’s elbows rest on the taller girl’s shoulders with her fingers laced behind her neck.

Also, she’s having some trouble finding her words.

"R-Really?”

Carmilla brushes her lips lightly over hers with a knowing smile. “Mhmm.”

Laura licks her lips, trying very hard to keep her breathing steady because the way it’s suddenly uneven and shallow is downright embarrassing “What do you want to do first then?"

Carmilla’s eyes are as bright as they were last night when she’d submitted to her slow, eager, but oh so patient touch, and her smile is as flirtatious and pleased as the moment afterwards when Laura – sweaty, quivering, still breathing fast, and with her heart about ready to burst right out of her chest – had pulled her naked body against her and buried her flushed face in her neck with an elated, breathy laugh.

It seems, she isn’t the only one remembering, and Carmilla leaves the single word on her lips after a slow, lingering kiss: "You."

Her heart beats in her throat, and when Carmilla leans in closer and presses her lips to her neck, Laura feels every place their bodies are touching like the memories of the night before are burning between them.

"You're definitely first on my to-do list...” Carmilla murmurs with a smile as her lips slide from her neck to her ear, and she tightens her hold and whispers in a gravelly voice just dripping with seduction: “Over and over again."

_Oh._

A high, surprised sound escapes her throat as she lets Carmilla pull her closer, and then there’s just the wet, satisfying sound of kissing left to break the silence as Carmilla tilts her face and recaptures Laura’s smiling lips.  She quickly kisses the smile away and Laura melts into her lips and the delicious game of push and pull and teasing pressure and glancing touches and the oh so addicting feel of Carmilla against her, and yeah, she should probably be more vigilant for the sake of the mission, but Carmilla might be both the best and the worst distraction ever.

Unfortunately the kiss doesn’t last nearly as long as Laura had hoped. 

"Guys, If you're going to start ripping each other's clothes off, please give us a heads up so we can – you know – _give you a friggin moment_ while we prepare to play bait to the most terrible monster Silas has ever faced.” The walkie-talkie in her pocket crackles in what seems like completely fitting irritation as Danny adds: “Also, for God’s sake, please take your finger off the transmit button."

They pull away – Carmilla with an indignant, irritated huff, and Laura with wide, embarrassed eyes and a cry of alarm.

“Crap!”

She scrambles for the walkie-talkie – and yeah, her shorts pocket had been holding down the button.

"Sorry," she transmits quickly. Carmilla just scoffs.

"Who invited her?"

"Be nice."

She waits.

Radio silence.

"Um, Danny, do you copy?" she transmits finally.

A crackle – again, irritated – then: "Copy. Friggin. _Everything_."

She pulls out of Carmilla’s embrace and massages the back of her neck guiltily. "Sorry."

Carmilla, for her part, looks wholly pleased with herself. “I’m not,” she murmurs, and Laura shoves her.

Danny’s on the walkie-talkie again, sounding as cross as Carmilla looks self-satisfied. "At least I'll die with the last thing I hear the happy knowledge of your plans after we win…”

 _That_ , she ignores. "What's your status?"

Thankfully, Danny sounds only mildly annoyed when she answers. Instead there’s a sharp, focused edge to her voice that Laura recognizes from previous plans – most notably, the one to take down Carmilla.

Which, to be honest, went about as according to any kind of plan as the current one is bound to go...

"In position. Kirsch just tied up the last of the fireworks.”

“Are you both sure about this?”

Danny’s answer is instant. “We are.”

She nods, her heartbeat suddenly fast and just a bit afraid. _This is happening._

"Perry,” she says into the speaker, “you and LaFontaine okay?"

“We’re – ” The transmission cuts off to the cry of LaFontaine’s name and _“Don’t!”_ Then:

“No, we’re definitely _not_ okay,” LaFontaine grumbles.

Laura starts in surprise. “What?”

“ _Susan!_ Give it back.”

There’s silence, interrupted only by intermittent clicks, static, and fragments of words: “I _can_ help!” “You’re hurt – ” “I want – ” “ – stubborn – ” “Give me – ”. Then silence. Finally, Perry’s perfectly controlled voice sounds over the air: “We’re fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve had to threaten to tie LaFontaine down to keep them from joining you. But we’re good."

"Alright. Tie them up if you need to."

“Kinky,” Carmilla murmurs with a lewd wink, and Laura bats her arm.

"Will do," Perry says with a tremor in her voice she quickly cuts off by clearing her throat. “Good luck.”

“Bye.” A beat. “Danny?”

"Just give us the go."

She frowns seriously and nods, shrugging on the mantle of ‘leader’ it seems she’s suddenly been bestowed. She wonders when that happened. Carmilla eyes her sudden determination with equal solemnity, gives her hand a reassuring squeeze, and scans the view before them.

Laura glances at her quickly, turns away, and clears her throat. 

"Uhm, Danny?”

“Yeah?”

 “Just – be careful, okay?” She swallows nervously. “Don’t take any risks."

Carmilla eyes her curiously, but thankfully doesn’t comment.

Danny’s answer is tentative and soft. "I – ” She cuts off. When she answers, her voice is strong again. “ _We_ won’t.” A beat. “See you on the other side."

The radio cuts off with a final click.

Instantly, a boom sounds in the distance, and the empty street – even bathed in sunlight as it is – is suddenly lit by bright yellow and green fireworks less than half a mile away – exactly over the pit. The whizzing and crackle is eardrum-shatteringly loud.

“Holy crap…” Laura murmurs. Carmilla shares her sentiment and looks on in wonder at the impressive display.

Laura’s hands tighten on the shovel by her feet and on Carmilla’s hand by her side when the walkie-talkie crackles to life.

"She's going for it! Go!" Danny shouts, breathing fast and voice unclear. Laura’s heart spikes with worry (Oh God, Oh God, she’s just killed Danny and Kirsch) and she’s about the reply, to warn, to tell her again to _please, please, please be careful_ , but Carmilla stops her with a steady hand.

“Let them do their thing. Stick to the plan."

The plan suddenly feels like – as Carmilla had said – a seriously, unbelievably, _mind-numbingly_ bad idea.

Another boom sounds in the distance.

“That's our cue, cutie,” Carmilla prompts, and pulls her to her feet.

“Oh God.” Both her voice and her legs are shaking – and that’s just _embarrassing,_ because Carmilla is holding her hand tight with a cheeky, challenging smile and looking like she’s only coming alive in the heat of this crazy mission – which is also slightly worrying.

But she’ll have to ponder that later, because Carmilla is tugging at her hand.

“Come on, Guinevere – let’s get that sword,” she quips, and then all but drags Laura around the bushes.

Thankfully, the adrenaline kicks in, and soon Carmilla isn’t so much dragging her as she is leading her through the streets and they’re rushing into danger side-by-side – and okay, yeah, she gets it now. The rush. The thrill. The unbelievably _alive_ feeling of zig-zagging through the rubble to danger – to the Lustig building. 

And she knows running straight into the pit they both nearly died in a few days ago shouldn’t be this exciting, but it _is_. Because if they make it – if they find that sword – they’ll _win._

She glances at Carmilla, and sees the same exhilarated expression on the vampire’s face. She squeezes her hand, smiles widely, and dodges them around a building.

Suddenly, they both screech to a halt, the sight in front of them startling them both into complete silence.

The building had been on its last legs when the wounded but triumphant group – sans Carmilla – had trudged away from the battleground, and Danny had said the building had taken another serious beating when the Zeta’s had decided to give the old lady a royal send-off via cherry bombs – but neither are prepared for the utter destruction before them.

The building is no more: its foundation is ripped down to chunks of stone and shreds of plaster littered around the edge of a deep, deep crater at least a quarter of a mile in diameter. If she squints, Laura thinks she can _just_ make out the square corners of the basement pressed into the sides of the crater like perpendicular indents in the uneven incline. A Silas university flag waves forlornly on a crooked mast at the far end of the crater. The center of the crater is blackened and still smoking slightly, like the Light they’d hoped they’d snuffed out is still smoldering below.  She knows it’s not – the Dean That Devours is chasing Danny and Kirsch, but it sends a chill down her spine nonetheless.

“Woah,” she says.

“Yeah.”

The only thing that seems to have miraculously survived is the doorway to the entrance hall of the building: brown bricks lining a white frame and door with a tattered “ _Welcome to the Lustig Center for Theatre, the oldest Silas University campus building!”_ sign on its cracked window.

“Come on,” Carmilla urges, and cracks open the door. It swings wide to the open air – which, _surreal_ to say the least – and the remains of the stairs to the basement. The steps are cracked halfway down and slope steeply into the depth of the pit. The darkness is made worse by an overhang, sending shadows across the depths. Laura looks down uncertainly and nudges the edge. A rock topples over and clacks against the bottom of the pit – far too long after. It’s too far to jump.

“Stay,” Carmilla commands, lets go of her hand, snatches the shovel, and leaps – and Laura’s throat clamps shut because Carmilla is not allowed to _leap_ anywhere anymore, _ever_.

Especially not a bottomless pit.

“Carm!” she yells, and then clamps a hand over her mouth worriedly, glancing in the direction of the library for signs that the Dean is returning at the sound of Laura’s – far too loud – cry of her daughter’s name.

But nothing but the distant sound of fireworks lights the deserted landscape.

From below, there’s nothing but utter, mind-freezing silence, broken only by the sound of her heart in the ears.

 Then – Laura sighs in relief – Carmilla’s voice echoes from the bottom of the pit: “Laura, jump!”

Her eyes go wide. “ _What?_ ”

“Come on, I’ll catch you.”

“You’ll _what?_!” she practically screeches.

“Mooncake...”

Laura looks down worriedly. The pit is _deep_ , and it’s not helping that the sun is bright and dominating over the scene, blinding her and putting the hole below into deeper shadows as the overhang blocks it out. She thinks she can just make out Carmilla below, but she could be wrong.

“Are you sure?”

Carmilla’s laughter echoes up at her, and that’s somewhat comforting. As are her next words: “Trust me.”

She does. After everything that happened – and especially after last night – _of course_ she does.

So, she takes a step back, powers up like pressing a spring, and leaps into the empty air.

For all her bravado, she can’t hold back the screech that escapes as she flies through the air and flutters to keep from flipping backwards.

Then Carmilla’s arms are under her shoulders and knees, and she lets out a sigh of relief.

“Thank God.”

Carmilla smirks cockily. “Told you I’d catch you.”

Though her heart is still beating fast, Laura can’t help but smile back.

“So, milady,” the vampire teases, adjusting her hold and tilting Laura back slightly, “Does this count as a heroic or romantic gesture?”

“Definitely neither,” Laura teases back. “Reckless, maybe.”

Carmilla pouts. “Tough crowd.”

Laura smiles and looks above her at the ledge just peeking out from the dark overhang. It’s not as dark down here as she thought, but the contrast with the brightness outside was so huge, it might as well have been the dead of night down here when she looked down from above.

“You know, that was kind of – _fun_ ,” she admits with a free laugh.

Carmilla raises an eyebrow. “That’s worrying.”

“Oh, be quiet,” she grumbles back.

They look at each other, and there’s a flirtatious sparkle in Carmilla’s eyes and smile, and suddenly Laura isn’t sure if her heart is beating from the dangerous flight or the arms still around her.

Carmilla seems to realize the same time she does, and sets her down with a self-conscious cough. 

“Sword.”

Laura picks up the shovel. “Yes. Right.”

“Let’s go.”

Carmilla takes her hand again, and leads her down the incline. Soon, the dark tunnel around them widens and leads them back out into the open crater and the blinding sunlight.

"Can you smell it?" Laura asks in a whisper as they scour their surroundings for a hint of the sword.

"Smell it? What?” She maneuvers them over a hill of rubble and scrap metal. “Do you think I'm some kind of police dog?”

She hops off a piece of plaster, landing anything but gracefully. "Police cat."

Carmilla huffs indignantly. “Panther.”

“Potato, potah-to.”

Suddenly, Carmilla stops short, and Laura bumps into her from behind. Her shoulders are tense, and Laura tightens her hold on her hand worriedly.

"I can – Wait..."

Her nostrils flare. Laura’s eyes widen. She hadn’t actually been _serious_.

"You _can_ smell it."

“No. Shhh.” Carmilla’s voice is unsettled and her movements sharp and focused as she glances around.  “I can _feel_ it."

Her smile freezes, and she takes in Carmilla’s perturbed expression uncertainly.

"Feel it? How?"

The vampire frowns. "I don't know."

"Could you feel it before? "

She shakes her head. "It took me ages to find it, grasping in the dark."

The image comes to her unbidden – Carmilla gasping for breath she doesn’t need but has learned to expect nonetheless as she searches an endless deep-sea cave with blindly groping hands. She shakes her head to clear it.

That’s definitely not what she needs right now.

"But then how can you…?"

"Yeah, I don't know,” Carmilla replies warily, catching Laura’s equally disturbed gaze anxiously. “Maybe because I used it last?" she offers, but it lacks conviction.

She’s not sure why – this _helps_ them, if anything, right? – but a chill of foreboding runs down her spine.

Carmilla gazes around them uncertainly, as though hoping she’s imagining the tug she feels in the direction of the sword.

“Which way?” Laura asks finally, because what else can they do?

Carmilla leads her wordlessly to the entrance of a nearby niche in the rubble, formed by blocks of plaster leaning like cards against each other. It leads into a small cave scooped out of the side of the deepest part of the crater.

Laura frowns. She feels like she knows this place.

As though Carmilla read her mind, she says softly, "I’m not sure, but I think this is where the giraffe and the puppy found me."

Laura’s eyes adjust to the darkness, and she suddenly wishes they hadn’t, because in the growing light, she can see dark, sticky splatters on the walls of the small cave. She’s seen enough of it that she doesn’t doubt her immediate instinct.

Blood _._

Carmilla’s blood.

The vampire sees it too, and squeezes her hand in reassurance. _I’m right here,_ the gesture says, and Laura leans closer thankfully.

"How did you heal?" she breathes after a minute.

“You healed me, remember?” Carmilla replies kindly.

“No, you didn’t have any wounds when Danny brought you.”

Carmilla frowns. “I didn’t?”

“No.”

“Are you s– ”

She’s cut off by a sharp crackling static from Laura’s pocket. Danny’s breathless voice echoes through the cave. "We – we made it!" she practically shouts.

Laura fumbles briefly with the walkie-talkie. "Are you alright?"

"She nearly got Kirsch before we got here, but I dragged him inside, and JP was right, she can't cross. The library must really be a whole other supernatural deal. She's screeching like a bat out of hell, trying to find a way inside.”

As though on cue, a loud scream sounds through the speakers, followed by Kirsch’s distant voice: “Yeah? You and whose army, bitch?”

Carmilla crinkles her nose in an approving smile.

“Have you got it yet?" Danny asks.

"Give me the shovel," Carmilla demands, and begins to dig.

"Almost,” Laura transmits.

"We’ll try to keep her distracted, but hurry."

“We will.”

Carmilla digs, sending the sharp shovel deep into the earth and launching the sod to the back of the cave with inhuman strength and speed. Laura keeps guard, glancing at the distant entrance worriedly. She’s trying not to look at the walls and at the sick, unpleasant cave drawings Carmilla’s suffering created, but her eyes keep going back.

She wasn’t wounded. There wasn’t a drop of blood on her bed when Danny laid her down. There simply wasn’t.

She frowns in confusion.

_Was there?_

She turns back to the vampire. “Are you sure this is the spot?”

Carmilla doesn’t even look up, too focused on the repetitive motions. “Yes.”

 _Because you can feel it?_ She longs to ask, but the words sound hollow and unhelpful and really not what she should be fretting about at the moment. But the worry worms its way into her mind nonetheless. Because her girlfriend _feeling_ her way to the ancient, demon-absorbing sword like some Harry Potter horcrux? Definitely not normal – even by Silas standards.

Suddenly her internal monologue is interrupted by a loud, resounding clank. She spins around and locks eyes with an equally excited Carmilla. They drop to their knees around the hole. The glint of the hilt of the sword sparkles at the bottom.

“Would you like to do the honors this time?” Carmilla suggests with a smile.

She doesn’t need to be told twice. With an excited squeak, she grasps the cool hilt and pulls – 

– and nearly topples backwards at the complete lackof resistance as nothing _but_ the hilt slides out of the dirt.

They both gawk at the short handle glinting in Laura’s hand.

The blade is gone. Completely, utterly _absent._

They catch each other’s eyes. Laura sees her own emotions reflected back. Shock. Helplessness. And something approaching terror.

Suddenly, Danny’s panicked voice breaks the quiet. “Guys, she’s gone! She just disappeared!”

Carmilla’s eyes widen and Laura stops breathing. Frozen in fear, neither of them thinks to reply.

Static crackles. “Laura! She’s coming! Get the hell out of there!”

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as their minds catch up with their racing hearts, Carmilla gropes through the dirt with the last remnant of their slowly dimming hope, but comes up empty-handed. Her expression says it all: all she felt, after all, was the empty hilt Laura is clutching in her hand.

So they run. Fast.

Laura drags the shovel with them, holding on because of some adrenaline-induced notion that they should leave the scene unchanged, untouched, and without a trace of their presence, but it slows her down and she stumbles through the rubble and her mind is too panicked to know what to do, until Carmilla finally grabs her hand and the shovel jangles to the ground with a resounding clatter that rings far too loud for comfort.

“Come on,” the vampire hisses, and pulls her up the slope to the other side of the crater.

 Fireworks spark from the side of the library – red, red, red. It sends an unpleasant glare over the barren landscape as they claw out of it. Laura recognizes Danny and Kirsch’s eleventh-hour effort to lure the Dean back – to lure her away from them.

It doesn’t work. A bright light crawls closer from the direction of the library and blocks out the bright fireworks.

It’s _her._

Laura squeaks in warning, and Carmilla shushes her desperately. She drags her up the slope. She stumbles, and her bare knees scuff on the dirt, but she barely feels it. All she feels is the terrified beating of her heart in her throat, Carmilla’s hand in her own clammy one, and the cold betrayal of the useless hilt of the sword in her other.

Shadows dance on a nearby building as the light approaches.

They scramble on, dodging around rubble frantically.

The light reflects on the soulless windows of the barren Silas buildings, sending flashes of light across the scene. The bright shards of light dance in her eyes as she looks up and tries her best to keep up. Carmilla hasn’t let go of her hand, hasn’t looked back once.

 “Carm!”

“I _know_ ,” she hisses, and looks over her shoulder, her face pale and bloodless in the oncoming unnatural light. Both their shadows are sharp and defined against the bright light creeping closer.

Carmilla pulls her up onto a block of plaster and urges her on. She nearly stumbles as she looks behind her in terror.

The light is nearly at the edge of the crater – and _they’re_ not there yet.

_Oh God._

This is it. This has got to be it.

Carmilla looks back once more. The light is reflected in her wide, worried eyes, as she freezes, and then she looks down at her, and all Laura suddenly wants to do is – _oh God_ – say goodbye.

“Carm…”

Carmilla nearly pulls back her hand in horror. “No." Her voice shakes. "We’re not – _no_.”

The light approaches, each second brightening the scene like a second sunrise.

With sudden inhuman strength and speed, Carmilla picks her up and drags them to  the nearest wall at the edge of the crater, pulling them both behind and down against it.

They’re there. They’re out. But they’re not nearly far enough to be safe.

The wall they’re hiding behind faces an office building in front of them and the whole side of the building is a mirror of windows. Laura looks up at it as it reflects the light back at them – along with the distant but crystal-clear reflection of the Dean as she saunters down into the pit.

Laura gasps.

The Dean That Devours looks up sharply.

Carmilla pulls her against her and clamps a hand over her mouth. Both their eyes are transfixed on the reflection in the window.

Laura wonders how it’s possible the Dean’s outfit – pale silk blouse tucked into a black pencil skirt – and her hair, pulled tight into a severe blond bun, looks as immaculate as the day of her opening year address. She is Silas’s Dean through and through, the picture of stern and merciless rule. And yet – there is something larger than life about her as she meanders easily across the rubble, supported by the space below her as though the ground fears the touch of her stiletto-clad feet. It feels like blasphemy to an unnamed god to look upon her like this, and Laura wishes she could look away because her eyes are burning.

Of course, that also could be the blinding light, because the Dean’s skin permeates a glow like gold neon and the air around her shines like a bright, terrifying halo.

If there was any doubt of the Dean’s dominion over Lophiiformes, this moment dispels it all.

Laura feels Carmilla’s breath steadily by her ear, shallow gusts cold with fear, arms frozen around her.

The Dean glances around her and frowns, testing the air and apparently feeling something amiss.

Laura trembles. Carmilla holds her tighter. _It’s okay. Don’t look. We’ll be okay._ Her words are voiceless and barely audible, but Laura nods and presses closer.

But she doesn’t close her eyes. It would be like trying to block out the sun.  

The Dean settles in the center of the crater, surveying the rubble around her like coming home and finding miniscule details and important memorabilia out of place.

Her eyes fall on the shovel.

Laura nearly whimpers against Carmilla’s hand on her mouth.

They shouldn’t have left it. They should’ve taken it after all.

Carmilla is shaking her head as though she’s reading her mind. _We couldn’t have taken it. It can’t be helped._

The Dean tests the shovel in her hands, surveying the wood and metal like reading a clue. Her lips pull up in a sneer, and she grumbles a laugh – a laugh as terrible as Danny and Kirsch had described – _like a million baritone voices cackling in unison._

She tightens her grip, and before their very eyes, the metal bends around her fingers and wood smolders and splinters and cracks until the shovel falls in broken pieces to the ground.

Still, somehow, it’s not the impossible display of strength that chills Laura to the bone: it’s that _smile_.

She _knows._

“Laura?”

Kirsch’s voice is a whisper over the walkie-talkie, but in the tense silence, it might as well have been a gunshot.

She gasps in surprise and turns the walkie-talkie off with a click.

The Dean looks up in their direction shrewdly. And smiles.

“Carmilla, darling, is that you?”

Carmilla’s eyes are wide and pleading, and she shuts them tight, shaking her head desperately. She misses the way the Dean straightens triumphantly and steps over the torched skeleton of the shovel – a step, however small, in their direction.

“Come on out, dear.” Her voice is like poisoned honey. She takes another step. Carmilla presses them back against the rough stone of the remnant of the Lustig building.

“Is that your pet I smell? Is she with you?”

Carmilla tightens her arms protectively. Laura stops breathing. She can feel herself start to tremble in her effort to stay as still as possible, hunched to the ground in Carmilla’s arms with eyes trained on the reflection and heart beating in fear of meeting the Dean’s eyes. Because though the Dean is surveying the space around her, stepping closer, she hasn’t spotted them in the reflection. Instead, she turns her head and sniffs the air.

Though Carmilla doesn’t seem to have a heightened sense of smell, the Dean clearly does. She hones in on the trail she’s picked up, stepping closer beat by beat.

And they can do nothing but wait for her to find them.

And then – Laura blinks to clear what must no doubt be a trick of the light because she’d been about to kiss Carmilla _goodbye,_ for God’s sake (her protests be damned), and there is _no_ way they could actually still make it out of this _alive,_ could they? – the Dean turns toward the small cave they’d just sprinted out of.

Carmilla’s eyes widen and she breathes out silently in surprise.

“Oh, Carmilla?” the Dean hums with sickening sweetness as she disappears into the cave, and Laura could cry in relief, because Carmilla lets her go, grabs her hand again, and then they’re running.

Running with terrified backwards glances past the windows still reflecting a column of light shining from the empty cave.

Running with flying feet pounding frantically across the deserted streets.

Running with whipping hair past their previous hiding spot – their rendezvous point – behind the bushes.

Just – running.

Laura’s breath is ragged and painful and she slouches down with her hand on her knee when they finally come to a brief rest after what feels like miles. Carmilla looks back distraughtly, tugging at her hand and urging her to keep running.

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream resonates from the distant pit.

Laura doesn’t need more motivation than that, and they flee _._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, plot twist. What do you think they'll do about the sword, mmh? And will the Dean be coming after them, do you think?
> 
> Or just let me know what you liked (or didn't!). Comments are food for writers, and I'm always a little hungry.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who love a little Danny/Carmilla fighting...

 "I don't understand." 

LaFontaine is frowning. Deeply. And they’re not the only one. The group – sans Danny and Kirsch – is gathered back in her room, and every eye is trained on the traitorous sword hilt lying lonely and lifeless on the open Sumerian book on her desk. 

"It's broken, genius," Carmilla snarls, and crosses her arms in irritation. Before, Laura would have dismissed her aloof attitude, or called her out on it, but she sees the way Carmilla's eyes are drawn back to the sword every few seconds like it's evidence of a friend's utterly unexpected and deeply felt betrayal. Every time she does, Laura can see a glimmer of hope dim out of existence.

"I still don't understand," LaFontaine repeats, ignoring Carmilla's sour mood – most likely because they barely know a different mood from her.

Carmilla turns away with a huff, and though she shifts her shoulders like the turn of events have her completely unfazed, Laura sees the way she hunches them – not in nonchalance, but in defeat.

"It's a magical sword – the friggin’ Blade of Hastur, for God’s sake! How can it break?" Perry exclaims, gesturing animatedly, 

Carmilla shrugs. "Like any other piece of metal can, I suppose.” 

“But it’s not broken. It’s like… absent," LaFontaine points out – and absent is the right word because from the crossguard onwards, there is nothing – no sharp but ineffective shard of broken blade, no melted down unrecognizable remains, just – nothing, as though the blade had been ripped from the hilt completely. 

“Point being?” 

“Like, where is it?”

LaFontaine reaches forward and waves their hand through where the blade would be as though they’re expecting it to be invisible but still there. Predictably, their hand passes through the air without resistance, and their face falls.

“Does it matter?”  

"Did you leave it in the pit?"

"No,” Carmilla growls. Laura shakes her head sadly in agreement. 

LaFontaine turns it in their hand. "Can't we somehow fix it?"  

"Sure. Great idea. Know any supernatural smelters around here?" Carmilla snaps. Laura rubs her hand on Carmilla's back, and the girl deflates, "Look, unless you want me to take down my mother in a hilt-versus-face fistfight, it’s useless." Carmilla’s voice is exhausted and Laura kindly runs her hand to the back of her neck. The vampire tenses, but doesn't move away. She’s glad, because she can use the comfort too.

 It’s unsettling to realize how much they’d all been riding on the sword to win this fight.

Carmilla sighs again and eyes them all forlornly from underneath her fringe. "We need a new plan – or we do what you suggested, Laura."

"What?" She’s pretty sure her two-step disastrous disgrace of a plan is off the table – which, good thing.

Carmilla looks at her pointedly and tilts her head sadly. "We run."

As though responding to the note of defeat that suddenly falls over them, the door slams open and Danny rushes in, her breathing fast and shallow, her skin shining with sweat, and her eyes wide, followed closely by a less enthusiastic Kirsch.   

“Laura!” the redhead cries when she sees her, and before she knows what’s happening, Danny has scooped her up in a bone-crushing hug that sends her desk chair toppling backwards. Her legs dangle uselessly, and she hooks her arms over Danny shoulders to keep from feeling completely like a rag doll.  

“Would it have goddamn killed you – _any_ of you – to turn your walkie-talkie back on when you got back?” Danny murmurs into her shoulder. 

Her stomach drops. Right.

“Sorry,” she mutters with a grimace, and Danny sets her back on her feet carefully and brushes her hair from her forehead. Part of her – the part acutely aware of Carmilla's eyes on her – wants to pull back from the overly intimate touch, but Danny's eye are filled with concern. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine." She pulls back and eyes the redhead curiously. There’s something charged and alive in her eyes that Laura hasn’t seen since she tried to take down Carmilla. She looks just slightly… She frowns. The word _demented_ comes to mind. It’s only made worse by the frazzled mess of her hair where it's come out of her ponytail and the yardstick she’s still clutching in her fist.

Carmilla's nickname Xena – post-battle or post-sex, whichever – suddenly seems highly accurate. All that's missing is the theatrical smear of blood on her cheek and a doting, naïve provincial girl fighting and learning the warrior’s ways alongside her.

She frowns. By which she does _not_ mean herself.  

"Are _you_ okay?”  

Danny grins excitedly. "Yeah.” She brushes back her hair, and it sticks in place with the sweat of her brow. “Again, JP was right about the tunnels. We had to wait ‘til six, when the sub-basement appeared, but he led us right to them." She reaches into her pocket. “Here he is, by the way.” LaFontaine boots up the laptop and plugs him in.

“Did the library give you any trouble?”

Danny laughs – loudly and without inhibition. "Why do you think I look like this? Yoga class on the way back?” She laughs again and straightens smugly, hefting the yardstick onto her shoulder. “I had a _very_ exciting sparring match with a scroll on 13th century weaponry and silver smithing, and few bibles started screeching to Kirsch about living in sin – which is pretty ironic considering, of all of us, he's practically the picture of chastity and purity." She turns to him with a grin.

Kirsch, however, is staring mindlessly out to space, his brow furrowed in thought.

Danny raises an eyebrow. “Kirsch, you okay?”

He snaps out of it, and slowly smiles. “Oh. Yeah.” He barks a brittle laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Funny. Fine.”

Danny turns back to the bunch, her smile turning slightly guilty. “Maybe I enjoyed it all just a little too much. Because Kirsch got – ”

Perry interrupts with a cry of alarm: “Oh my god, what happened to your arm!?”   

All eyes snap to Kirsch, and he smiles sheepishly, lifting his right sleeve gingerly and revealing a blistering, charred wound slightly oozing blood and clear fluid.

Laura’s mouth drops open when she realizes the burn is in the shape of a handprint.  

He opens his mouth to explain as LaFontaine rushes forward to examine his skin, but Danny – the adrenaline clearly still coursing through her veins – beats him to it. "The Dean grabbed him a few feet from the library, and this crazy light shot out of her hand and burned him. He went all freaky and rigid and his eyes started rolling back and I thought he as a goner for sure, but I wacked her over the head with a fire extinguisher and she let go and we got inside."

“Burning hands. Right. That’s not at all worrying,” Laura murmurs with a reproachful frown at Danny’s excited expression, who drops her smile contritely. “Christ, Kirsch, that looks bad!” 

LaFontaine produces a syringe and lightly pricks the wound with it. A drop of yellow and red _ick_ wells up.

Good God. She might be sick.

The fact that Kirsch doesn’t even react is _not_ helping.

He shrugs. “No, it’s totally fine. Doesn’t even hurt.” 

LaFontaine tilts their head ruefully. “That’s because it’s a second degree burn. Your nerve endings are burnt off.”

They prick him again, Kirsch grins, and even Carmilla cringes.

LaFontaine shakes their head and puts away the syringe. “Tomorrow you’ll be in pain.” 

Kirsch shrugs, unfazed, and rolls down his sleeve.

Danny smiles in encouragement. “Worth it, right? Chicks dig scars, and all that,” she says with a wink and a spot-on Zeta impression.

Kirsch shrugs noncommittally.

Danny raises an eyebrow. “Jeez, you’re really out of it. Battle wounds. Hottie bait. More game for us. Earth to Kirsch?”

He grins apologetically. “Yeah. Sorry. Nearly getting consumed by a supernatural being really takes the fight right out of you.”

“So does losing the Blade of Hastur,” Carmilla adds gloomily from the side of the bed, and Danny whips around.

“ _What?”_

Laura tilts her head in agreement. “Yup. Sword is a goner.”

 _“What_ did you do?” Danny – demon-Danny, more like – snaps at Carmilla with murder in her eyes – and _woah_ does she look like some kind of soul-sucking, battle-roaming Valkyrie returning from the depths of Valhalla.

 “Cool it, Angry Bird, it wasn’t my fault,” the vampire snarls back.

Danny steps closer threateningly, eyes blazing at Carmilla.  Laura tenses on her chair, tightening her fingers on Carmilla’s shirt. _Be careful._

“I highly doubt that,” Danny spits.

Carmilla, for her part, acts wholly unfazed. “And I care what you think because…?”

“Because we just _taunted_ your nearly invincible mother from hell and now we don’t have a weapon to take her down?” 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Carmilla throws back with a spiteful grimace – which, _so_ not helping.

Danny glares at her, chest heaving lividly. “We ran more than two miles with a diabolical bureaucrat on our heels. We nearly got turned into human spit roasts in front of library doors that basically function as a gateway to another _plane_. We crawled through antediluvian, mold-infested stacks with books screaming passages from Corinthians at us, and I’m pretty sure I swallowed a spider – ” her hand tightens on the yardstick “– and it was all for _nothing_?”

 “Besides my extreme amusement?” Carmilla smirks cruelly, and Laura could strangle her.

She’s not the only one, because Danny slaps the closet behind her with the yardstick and wields it at Carmilla.

“That’s _it_. I have had enough of your snark, your nihilism, and your antihero complex. We nearly died and you’re _laughing_.”

Carmilla sits back languidly and shrugs. “I thought you just said you enjoyed it all _so_ much.”

The yardstick clacks against the closet again. “When I thought it had a point!”

“You should be used to all your actions being pointless by now,” Carmilla points out. She slides out from under Laura’s hand as she scoots to the edge of the bed, and Laura’s stomach drops because that is _not_ a good sign.

“You don’t have the best track record, do you?” Carmilla continues. “Capturing me.” She tilts her head thoughtfully. “Trying to _re_ capture me. Playing bait to my mother.” She shifts to the side and subtly brushes Laura’s shoulder with her own – possessive, flaunting – and Laura narrows her eyes. Carmilla’s never leave Danny’s.  “Hell, even pursuing Laura.”

The yardstick in Danny’s hand crunches and splits and _holy_ crap, what kind of crazy and ultra-effective hand exercises has the Summer Society been up to to make Danny so freakishly strong? 

Laura jumps up. “That’s enough!”

“No, it isn’t.” Carmilla stands up slowly and Laura can see every fiber of fear and dejection has transformed to leaden fury that’s tensed like a strung bow and aimed at the vampire’s nearest nemesis.

She’s not the only one in the crosshairs though, because Danny’s whole body is dripping _murder._

“Carmilla,” she starts, but when she puts her hand out, Carmilla slaps it away and takes a step closer to Danny.

“No,” she snaps, eyes still locked with Danny.

“Yes, let her.” Danny flexes her fingers, and the broken half of the yardstick clatters to the floor. “She clearly has something to say.”

Carmilla narrows her eyes. “I’m _sick_ of being blamed for all of this. I’m sick having to prove myself again and again – to _you_ , of all people – when I have _nothing_ to prove – not about my past, not about Laura, and certainly not about this fucking mess.

“You say you nearly died?” she continues, eyes flaring. “Well, join the friggin’ club, lighthouse, and next time, let’s make sure _one_ of us finally does the job right.”

“Well, don’t hold back,” Danny says with a tight-lipped, challenging smile as she tightens her grip on the cracked yardstick held like a stake. 

Carmilla tilts her head and returns the malicious smile. “Likewise.”

Danny breathes out raggedly, Carmilla tenses her shoulders, and no one in the room dares to even breathe. Until –

“Stop.”

Laura steps between them, putting up her hands and looking between them pleadingly. It’s not the smartest thing to do, but she figures if they really both care for her as much as they claim while they prepare to tear each other’s throats out – she’ll be safe…

Danny’s eyes glow.

…right?

She looks between them, hands still up and searching for words to placate the two and –

Wait a minute. Danny’s eyes are _actually_ glowing – irises going from clear green to unholy sunlight-bright yellow.

Carmilla realizes the same time she does, and her snarl freezes on her face as her eyes go wide in fear.

And then a lot of things happen all at once.

LaFontaine pulls a completely lost-looking Kirsch back against the closed door behind them, wielding their syringe like a dagger.

Perry gasps and screams and rushes toward the window.

Two hands shoot out and knock her back on the bed – Danny’s right and Carmilla’s left – pushing her out of the way as they lunge towards each other. Danny – eyes bright yellow and lips quivering in a growl – slashes up the splintered yardstick in a sharp uppercut and Carmilla mirrors her with a hand – a claw – pulled back like a feline predator.

Her head knocks the wall with a sharp thwack and her vision blurs, but she hears.

The attacking growl and hiss.

Carmilla’s scream of pain.

The clatter of wood on the floor

And the ear-splitting crash that follows.

Her heart is hammering in fear as she scrambles up, both the girls’ names rolling around in her head with terrible, mind-numbing distress.

“ _Carmilla!”_

Her throat tightens around the shout of the girl’s name at the sight in front of her: Danny pushed up against the closet with Carmilla’s hands locked around her throat and wrist. The broken yardstick lies at their feet, its sharp point glistening with blood that’s smeared across Danny’s throat.

And there’s a lot of it. Gushing.

“Oh my God…”

 Her heart stops for a terrifying moment, before she realizes the blood isn’t Danny’s and she’s not in danger of bleeding to death in front of them. Carmilla, on the other hand… Her arm is sliced open from wrist to elbow, and she’s bleeding profusely.

Her hand tightens on Danny’s throat nonetheless.

“ _What_ are you?” she hisses.

Danny’s eyes flash – bright, horribly bright yellow – and she pulls back her lips in a feral growl of defiance.

 “Answer me!” Carmilla demands, pulling forward and knocking Danny’s head against the closet behind her. “What did the Dean do to you?”

Danny grabs Carmilla’s wrist and digs her nails cruelly into the jagged wound. Carmilla’s blood presses out between her fingers, and the vampire cringes.

Laura does too, and her heart beats its fear.

“Kirsch!?” Carmilla snaps sharply.

Kirsch is shaking, looking between the two formidable women in terror. “Nothing!” he screeches. “Exactly what she said!”

“Did you ever lose sight of her? Was she ever alone with her?”

“No!” Kirsch cries desperately.

Carmilla falters, looking at Danny with trepidation. Laura sees her hand loosen uncertainly on her throat, slipping on the blood still leaking down her arm.

Danny’s scowl turns victorious.

“Carm!”

She’s too late, because Danny – or whatever has possessed her – snarls and shoves Carmilla back with inhuman strength, eyes glowing brighter as her palms connect with the vampire’s shoulders and she falls back against the desk. Carmilla’s bloody hand slips on the open book and she stumbles to the ground.

Danny hunches her shoulders and towers over Carmilla where she’s cradling her bleeding arm on the floor, and steps forward.

So does Laura.

She stares up at her, fists clenched by her side, Danny towering over her and Carmilla cowering behind her.

She’s simultaneously never felt as tiny or as tall.

“Don’t!” LaFontaine warns desperately.

“No!” she shouts back. “If the Dean wants Carmilla, she’s going to have to go through me!”

Danny breathes heavily, eyes glowing and trained insistently on the vampire in her sights.

Laura looks up at her, dreading but begging for Danny’s frightful, shimmering gaze. “Danny, stop. This isn’t you.”

A low grumbling sound vibrates in Danny’s throat. She steps closer, forcing her to move back. Her heel nudges Carmilla, and she feels the vampire’s hand reach up and grab her wrist.

“Laura, don’t,” the vampire says unsteadily.

She shakes her head. No. No way is she going to lose her now.

She can feel Danny’s breath on her face – fast, desperate, and out of control.

“Danny, look at me,” she begs.

Danny tenses her shoulders, eyes pulsing brightly as she eyes Carmilla like prey.

Her voice is soft but steady. “Please.”

The growl in her throat grows, and she narrows her eyes, all semblance of Danny absent and leaving only a wild beast.

But then, against all odds –

Danny’s vivid eyes turn to her. And she blinks. And falters.

“Danny?” Laura breathes hopefully.

The predatory mask slips away and when she blinks again, her eyes are green.

“Laura?” she replies.

She could cry in relief because holy crap, what even? She nods and reaches out a steadying hand, not caring that she’s pretty sure a few seconds ago whatever that was could have snapped her wrist like a twig – because Danny – the real Danny – looks about ready to crash to the ground. Her eyebrows are pulled together in distress and she’s shaking.

“Oh God,” she murmurs, running her hands through her hair in anguish and stepping back. “Oh no. Oh no…” She looks up at her again. “Laura…” her voice falters, and she steps closer, reaching for her outstretched hand. “Crap. I’m so – oh god – are you alright?”

“Don’t touch her,” Carmilla snaps, staggering to her feet and putting a defensive – and bloody – arm in front of Laura protectively.

Danny’s face falls and she steps back. “I’m sorry.” She puts up her hands warily and eyes the blood on her fingers in horror. She takes another step back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t move,” Perry commands from the window, wielding a hammer in front of her. LaFontaine and Kirsch lock arms and guard the door. Carmilla steps forward subtly as though she’s stalking prey.

Danny looks around helplessly, eyes flicking between the five of them and looking hopelessly lost.

“Guys, please.” She cowers on the spot, searching for an escape and looking horribly like a cornered animal begging for mercy. Laura frowns. Before them is clearly _Danny_ again – eyes wide and terrified, breathing shallow and panicked, and softly muttering apologies and pleas.

The group around her shows no signs of laying down their weapons, and something snaps inside her. 

“Guys, just stop,” she commands, grabbing Carmilla by the back of her shirt and holding tight. The vampire tenses and eyes her curiously, but freezes.

“I’m sorry,” Danny repeats, her eyes pleading.

Laura steps past Carmilla slowly, cautiously. “Danny? Are you _you_ again?”

“Yes, I swear,” she says desperately. “I’m so sorry.”

She narrows her eyes, trained and alert for changes in the girl in front of her. She sees none – just the Danny she knows, and it makes up her mind. “Guys, she’s alright. Calm down.” She lets go of Carmilla, and the girl thankfully doesn’t continue prowling. “It wasn’t your fault,” she says to Danny after a moment. “You were possessed.”

Danny shakes her head. “No. Oh God.” Her shoulders drop hopelessly. “I wish I was, but no.”

“Yes, you were, we saw you,” Perry says carefully.

“The Dean possessed you somehow,” LaFontaine adds, unlocking their arm from Kirsch’s. “Pod-people’d you.”

Danny shakes her head again and laughs grimly. “No, I’m not pod-people’d.”

“That’s exactly what someone who’s been pod-people’d would say,” LaFontaine points out.

“I’m not!” Danny cries. Laura can see Perry’s hands tighten on the hammer, and Kirsch tenses in preparation.

“Your eyes were glowing,” she says.

Danny looks back up at her and shrugs unhappily, her grim smile turning apologetic. “I know. They do that.”

She frowns. Carmilla tenses behind her but stays silent.

“What?”

“They do that…” Danny says slowly. “When I’m – ” she cuts off, eyes darting uncertainly around her.

“When you’re what?” she prods.

Danny’s eyes are wide and pleading and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She ducks her head and turns to the door. Lafontaine slams their hand against it.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! There’s no way we’re letting you go and run to the Dean.”

Danny huffs in irritation. “I’m not running to – I’m not possessed!”

“No human is that freakishly strong,” Carmilla murmurs behind her. Laura glances back. There’s a small puddle of blood on the floor but her arm has stopped dripping.

“I’m not human,” Danny says in defeat.

Okay, not the answer she was expecting.

“What?”

She turns back to them with hunched shoulders and vulnerable, pleading eyes. “I’m – ” She cuts off and smiles ruefully at her. “Please don’t freak out,” she murmurs softly.

Laura holds her breath. Danny holds her gaze. After a moment, she sighs and shrugs wearily. “I’m a werewolf.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, I went the classic werewolf!Danny route! We're getting closer to the end - and to your last chances to leave comments! Please do, they are the light of my very boring days. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday! As is Dutch tradition, I'm handing out treats - in the form of an anticipated chapter and a promise of an as yet unannounced epilogue. :) So 10 chapters is officially 11 now. Yay!

The silence that follows is absolutely deafening.

“W-werewolf?” Laura finally sputters, lifting her jaw from the floor and blinking in shock.

“Yeah,” Danny answers simply, shrugging again and clearly trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

“Define werewolf,” LaFontaine demands.

“Yes, a definition sounds like a good idea,” Perry says, nodding with wide eyes.

“Werewolf. Lycanthrope. Hound of God, whatever.” Danny gestures wearily. “I shapeshift into a wolf, okay? Not that hard. Everyone’s read Harry Potter and Twilight, haven’t they?”

Chances are, _yes_ , they all have. But living it? Have they all somehow landed in a lesbian Twilight alternate universe?

She cringes when she realizes who that would make _her._

Not the best analogy.

She’s not the only one having trouble processing. The hammer is slowly slipping out of Perry’s hands and she doesn’t notice. LaFontaine is studying Danny like she’s a completely unexpected result of an experiment that should _never_ have borne fruit. Kirsch is looking vaguely impressed.

But Carmilla, out of all of them, seems the most distressed. Her lips are tight, her shoulders tense, and as she watches, the vampire pulls back and edges toward the table – which, seriously _weird._

Of course, her sort-of-ex just admitted to being a werewolf, so weird is certainly relative.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Laura finally asks.

Danny shrugs and steps toward the bed. No one stops her this time. “I already have to come out of the closet to anyone new I meet – to gay _and_ straight people since bi seems to magically fit in _neither_. I try to avoid coming out of the proverbial wolf pen on top of it.” She sits down and looks up apologetically.

Laura steps closer. “Come on, we wouldn’t have judged.” She tilts her head consolingly, pushing back the part of her that points out – _screams at her_ is more accurate – that she’s seriously comforting a _werewolf_ on _coming out_ – because Danny is still frowning and looking oh-so-vulnerable.

 “I just didn’t think it changed anything,” she says, shrugging again. “In my wolf form, I can’t wield a stake or cry in warning or protect you from a vampire half as well as I can like this.”

“Okay, but you’re a friggin’ _werewolf_!”

She shakes her head. “And the fact that you say it like _that_ – as glad as it makes me that you have such faith in me – is part of the reason I didn’t tell you. Because it’s not nearly as impressive as it sounds.” She fidgets nervously with her fingers in her lap. “Werewolves die just as easily as humans. The Summer Society – ” she cuts off quickly and backtracks. “Wolves are strong, yes, but they’re still animals. Against vampires, I’m stronger as a girl.”

She imagines it – wolf versus girl. In _no_ universe does girl win, even one as freakishly strong and impressively tall as Danny.

“You could have told _me_ ,” she finally says softly.

“Our existence is a closely guarded secret – clearly.” Danny laughs dryly, but not unkindly. “And honestly, I thought you had enough weird on your plate with a vampire roommate throwing _seduction eyes_ your way without finding out your TA morphs into a wolf at the monthly Summer Society Nox Lupus festival to howl at the full moon.”

“Oh.” Well. “That’s – uncharacteristically considerate of you.”

“Yeah, well.” Danny looks up and glares at Carmilla, who remains frozen in place and doesn’t react. “Didn’t make much of a difference in the end.”

She rolls her eyes. That’s more of the (new) Danny she knows.

“Right.”

“Trust me, it’s really not how I wanted to come out,” Danny adds with rueful smile. “Losing control like that? That _never_ happens – not to me, at least.” She grins lopsidedly. “Frankly, it’s just a little embarrassing.”

“Losing control?”

She gestures at her face. “The eyes? I can shift whenever I want and stay in control, but if I get seriously angry, the wolf takes over.” Danny cranes her neck and nods at Carmilla. “Good job on that, dead girl.” She pauses and frowns, adding softly, “Good thing you stopped me though.”

Carmilla stands stock-still in the corner she’s slowly backed herself into, eyes narrowed and defiant. Danny raises an eyebrow.

“Hey, you okay?” She tilts her head curiously. Carmilla swallows fearfully but doesn’t react. “Sorry about trying to you kill you,” Danny tries again.

Carmilla eyes her apprehensively, and Laura briefly thinks she’s not going to reply at all, and just continue staring fretfully and slowly become part of the décor: a tense, unmoving statue.

But, she’s wrong.

“No, it’s fine,” Carmilla says carefully, brushing dried blood off her arm. The tension in her arm betrays her nerves, and Laura wonders at her strange behavior.

Danny suddenly seems to realize the damage she’s done and frowns apologetically. “You should take a look at that.”

Laura’s eyes widen in realization.

Crap. She should probably have been more worried about her girlfriend than this, but werewolf sort-of-ex apparently trumps injured but immortal definitely-current.

She pushes away the rise of bile in her throat at the abundant smears of blood down her arm.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, taking Carmilla’s hand carefully.

“No,” Carmilla admits, finally looking away from glaring suspiciously at Danny. “I – ” Her eyebrows rise in surprise and she stares at her arm in wonder. “I’m healed _._ ”

“What?” She turns Carmilla’s hand and runs a finger over her arm.

“There’s no wound. A second ago there was, but – ”

Only specks of coppery dried blood slide off, leaving nothing but unblemished skin beneath.

Laura’s eyes widen. _What the –?_

“Do you usually heal that fast?”

She shakes her head, eyeing her arm in trepidation. “Not like this – not without drinking blood first.”

“Then how did – ”

“Holy crap! Guys!” LaFontaine suddenly interrupts, rushing forward. “Look at the book!”

Six pairs of eyes snap to the book. And six pairs widen in astonishment.

Laura picks up the tome and recites slowly: “ _The Power of Hastur._ ”

She looks up, and by the five expressions of excitement and disbelief around her, she knows she doesn’t need to point out that _yes,_ this page was definitely blank a few minutes ago.

“How’s that possible? There was nothing in the book about the sword!” LaFontaine exclaims.

“It’s not _about_ the sword,” Laura says, brushing away a smear of blood on the page and squinting thoughtfully. “At least, not all of it. Listen: _The Power of Hastur is the hallowing bestowed by Hastur the Unspeakable upon completion of the forging of the blade of his name. Hastur magnum innominandum – ”_

“Come again?” Danny interrupts.

Carmilla eyes the newly-outed werewolf suspiciously, but answers nonetheless: “It means The Great One Who Is Not To Be Named.”

“So, Voldemort, basically,” LaFontaine adds dryly. Perry shushes them.

“Anyway,” Laura says, shifting the book onto her lap. Danny looks over her shoulder. Carmilla glares at Danny. She rolls her eyes and continues: “ _Hastur was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with his half-brother Cthulhu –”_ She frowns. “Chu-tu-loo? Kult-whoo? I don’t know – ”

“Keep reading,” Danny urges.

“ _Cthulhu, also known as Starspawn. In order to gain his favor, Hastur’s loyal followers burned Cthulhu at the stake and forged his bones into a blade capable of consuming all who opposed it.”_

“The Blade of Hastur,” Danny interjects.

“Clearly,” Carmilla drawls.

“ _However, when Hastur discovered what they had done, he was not pleased as they had expected, but turned his wrath upon them.”_  She scrubs briefly at a large blood splatter obscuring the page. “Just a sec – there’s blood – there: _To prevent the sword being used, he bathed the sword in his blood, and with a bloody kiss, cursed the blade to be consumed and to consume any who wielded and used it to completion. However, the cult of Hastur hypothesized that Hastur’s true goal was to transfer his own power to his half-brother’s remains so that their combined blood might live on in whoever chose to accept the sacrifice to wield the Blade of Hastur, and so live on in whoever was truly deserving of its power.”_

When she trails off uncertainly, silence falls. 

LaFontaine scratches their head. “That’s a pretty cool back story and all, and Hastur sounds like a real swell guy, killing his whole cult for turning his brother into a glorified butter knife… but I'm confused.”

“Me too,” she agrees, frowning. “Where did this _come_ from?” she asks in wonder.

Carmilla reaches forward and traces a faint, blurred handprint on the page half obscuring the words – a handprint made of blood.

“Me.”

“What?”

Carmilla turns her healed hand in wonder and places it on the smear. “It’s my blood. When I fell. Before I healed.”

“Why though? Before, the entry on Lophiiformes showed up, and there was nothing in the book about Hastur.”

“Maybe because I'm a vampire? Different blood type?” she offers, but it lacks conviction.

Laura frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

The six of them quietly read the passage again.

“What does ‘used to completion’ mean? That Hastur cursed the blade _to consume any who wielded and used it to completion?_ ” Danny asks.

LaFontaine squints at the page. “Like, if the blade kills the thing it was supposed to, I guess?”

“Yes, I think so,” Perry agrees.

“But it didn’t,” Laura points out. “The sword wasn’t used to completion, or whatever. Lophiiformes is still at least half-alive in the Dean That Devours.”

“So why is the sword gone? Consumed?” LaFontaine asks.

Carmilla looks up, her eyebrows pulled together in an uncharacteristically vulnerable expression. “And if the sword’s been consumed, why hasn’t it consumed me with it?” she asks softly.

Laura bites her lip until it hurts at the poignant silence that falls.

Then LaFontaine jumps up and brings the laptop out of sleep. “JP, please tell me you heard all that.”

**YES! Can you all please remember to wake me up next time so I can actually be of use?**

“Sorry. What can you tell us?”

 **You’re right about the ‘used to completion’ thing,** he explains. Perry smiles smugly and nods, poking LaFontaine. **The sword was destroyed upon first use, but it wasn’t used to completion because it didn’t kill Lophiiformes, so it didn’t consume you, Carmilla.**

The vampire’s frown deepens. “So Lophiiformes surviving saved my life?”

A short silence falls as they take it in. Then Carmilla clears her throat and smiles ruefully. “Not that I don’t like the way that worked out or anything – because _boy_ what a time to be alive with all these new monsters to battle – but that doesn’t completely rhyme. If the sword wasn’t used to completion, why is it gone?”

**It isn’t gone.**

Carmilla reaches for the hilt and turns it in her hand in front of the camera. “Looks pretty absent to me.”

 **The physical sword, yes, that’s gone,** JP concedes. **But not the Power of Hastur. I think _you_ have it, Carmilla.**

“What?”

**Its power wasn’t completely used up, so instead of the sword consuming you, you consumed _it._**

“Wait, the sword is _in_ me?”

**Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.**

She drops the hilt of the sword like it burns her. It clanks to the ground. “Ugh, why do I suddenly feel _violated_ …”

Laura snorts.  

**It’s nothing to be grossed out about.**

Carmilla grimaces. “Speak for yourself, Tron.”

**It’s why your blood activated the book.**

“Because I have the Power of Hastur in me?”

**Yes.**

Laura’s hit suddenly by a realization. “Is that why Carmilla could feel the sword today?”

“Wait, you could _feel_ it?” Danny asks.

Carmilla glares at her instantly, pursing her lips and turning her shoulders sideways – the weirdest defensive posturing Laura has _ever_ seen… outside of cats putting up their hackles, of course.

Right. Duh.

“Yeah,” the vampire replies carefully. “It was weird. Like – finding my way home.”

**Most likely, yes.**

“Well, what the hell?” she exclaims, grimacing in disgust. “That wasn’t the deal. I was supposed to kill Lophiiformes and be done with it. I don’t want this.” Flecks of copper float off her skin as she scratches at the smears of blood.

**The Power of Hastur also healed you.**

Carmilla freezes and she looks up instantly at Laura, whose breath has stopped short, remembering – cringing, blanching, but remembering nonetheless.

“Carm, the blood on the walls – ”

Carmilla lays a hand on hers consolingly and nods. “I’m fine _,_ ” she says gently. The rest look between them in confusion, but Carmilla turns back to the laptop without elaborating. “Alright, so I’ll send Hastur’s groupies a postcard or something. I still don’t want it. What am I supposed to do with it?”

A beat. Then –

“You kill Lophiiformes,” LaFontaine says, eyes wide with comprehension. “Right, JP?”

**Yes. It gives you the weapon you need against the Hungry Light.**

“A second chance,” LaFontaine says.

**If you can activate the Power of Hastur inside you, you can kill it.**

LaFontaine nods excitedly. “Allof it, finally.”

“How do I activate it?” Carmilla asks.

**Hastur’s curse was blood magic, so I think swapping bodily fluids would do the trick.**

Carmilla raises a horrified eyebrow. “That sounds – grossly sexual.”

 **I meant blood, or something similar. Think hepatitis, and you’re on the right track**.

“I’m afraid to ask but… how is hepatitis transmitted?” Laura asks haltingly.

“Blood transfusions, needles, bites, sexual contact, and breast milk,” LaFontaine recites without missing a beat.

“That definitely limits our options,” Laura says slowly.

“Also – ugh, visuals,” Carmilla interjects with a gagging noise.

“A Carmilla-mommy monster blood transfusion? Seriously?” Danny says incredulously. “Good luck with that.”

“Do vampires feed off each other? Can we get her to bite you?” she asks.

The answer is not unexpected.

“Um, pass, thanks.”

“We can coat stakes in your blood, maybe?” Perry offers.

“You’ll never get close enough,” Carmilla points out.

“To you?” Danny asks with a joking smile. Laura recognizes the olive branch, but of course, Carmilla torches it.

She pulls back sharply and hisses the words. “If you’re collecting? _Definitely_. I do _not_ need you shedding all over me.”

“Jeez…” Danny murmurs. “Got any better ideas?”

Carmilla stills, still pulled back as far as possible from Danny, but thinking. Then, her posture relaxes and a sly smile crawls onto her face and Laura’s heart skips a beat at the sudden surge of hope that seems to run through the group at the subtle confidence in Carmilla’s smile.

She looks around at them, and her smile widens.

“How about a playful little panther bite?”

A beat. Then –

**That could work.**

The room fills with – there’s no other word for it – _whooping._ Perry and LaFontaine practically jump into each other’s arms. Kirsch and Danny hug and jump through the room together – Danny turning her whoops into spot-on howling and Kirsch possibly grunting “Pizza or Die!” – but she can’t be sure, because she pulls a still smiling Carmilla in and kisses her.

When she pulls away, Carmilla looks about ready to swallow the world whole, and smiles self-confidently.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go grab a bite of Lophiiformes!”

The companions smile and shout in encouragement and Laura’s feels like her heart is about to burst.

But then LaFontaine freezes.

“Hold up. The Power of Hastur only targets Lophiiformes, doesn’t it?”

**…Yes.**

“The Dean That Devours is more than that,” LaFontaine says. “Including but not limited to very powerful, very ancient, and very terrifying vampire.”

“So it won’t be as easy as Carmilla just biting her,” Laura finishes for her. “Right.”

A short silence falls, and she can see everyone’s self-assured smiles falter.

All except Danny.

“Alright, let’s think then,” Danny says excitedly, looking around at the rest and nudging Kirsch’s shoulder encouragingly. “We’ve got this, right?”

Carmilla tenses and glances at Danny from the corner of her eyes, her confidence clearly forgotten. She shifts and suddenly there’s decidedly more distance between them. Carmilla’s hand tightens into a claw at her side.

Danny doesn’t notice, but Laura frowns in confusion.

That’s not weird at all.

When Carmilla accidentally catches her gaze, she _just_ sees the flash of fear before the vampire pulls a mask over it – defiant, challenging, and suddenly distant.

Laura frowns in confusion, and as the group brainstorms about a plan she keeps an eye on the vampire. 

Then it happens again, and she’s not the only one who notices. Danny steps closer to the book, and Carmilla backs away instantly, practically hissing at the perceived invasion.

Danny raises an eyebrow. “What’s got your panties in a bunch? I said sorry.”

Carmilla shifts her shoulders again, taking the strange defensive cat-stance of before, and gazes up at Danny distrustfully from under her fringe. “Like that means _anything,_ knowing what you are,” the vampire spits.

Laura’s jaw about drops to the ground. “Carmilla!” she cries incredulously.

“What the hell?” Danny echoes, stepping back and looking utterly confused.

“Speciesist, much?” LaFontaine says softly, looking between them uncomfortably.

Carmilla looks wholly unfazed, holding Danny’s gaze in challenge and slowly bending and unbending her claw-like fingers like a metronome.

No – like a _tail_.

“You’re a werewolf,” she growls. “What do you expect?”

Danny scoffs in disbelief. “Some solidarity from the only other non-human in the room, maybe?”

Carmilla scoffs right back. “That’s rich.”

“ _What_ is your deal with werewolves?”

Carmilla tilts her head challengingly. “Oh, I don’t know,” she drawls venomously. “How about the centuries old feud they’ve had with vampires?”

“What?” LaFontaine asks.

Danny raises her eyebrows skeptically and laughs. “That’s not a thing.”

Carmilla doesn’t smile.

“…Are you serious?”

“Why do you think they’re called Hounds of God?” Carmilla shifts uneasily, still eyeing Danny suspiciously, but clearly somewhat put off by her reaction. “They’re hell-bent on tearing us to shreds.”

“Well, I’m not! Jeez. I may hate the crap out of you, but I’m not.”

Carmilla tenses her jaw. “You could kill me.”

Danny gestures around her and laughs. “I could kill _everyone_ , technically. But look at me!” She plucks at her T-shirt – _‘Summer Society – Summer of Love, 2013-2014’_ it says. “Practically a pacifist.” A beat. “ _And_ a vegetarian.”

“No, I mean… you could kill me in a _second_.”

Danny frowns. “What do you mean?”

Carmilla frowns in confusion. “Don’t you know werewolf bites are poisonous to vampires?”

The silence that follows is answer enough.

“ _What_?”

Carmilla’s frown deepens. “Maman’s daughter before me was bitten. Instant death.”

Danny’s eyes are wide and disbelieving. “Holy crap.”

“Is that true?” Laura demands.

She looks around, lost. “I didn’t know.”

“But could it be true?” LaFontaine asks.

“I really don’t know! I’ve only been a werewolf for a few years, I’m still learning.”

“Are you serious?” Carmilla asks scornfully. “You didn’t know?”

“No!”

“So you’re werepuppy,” the vampire says with a malicious smile.

“Hey!”

Carmilla laughs. “You’re right, you _are_ a useless wolf.”

Danny bristles, fists clenching by her side and taking a small step towards Carmilla. “Watch yourself. I can kill you with a bite.”

Carmilla throws out her hand in frustration. “You didn’t even know about that! Chances are you can barely stand on your own four paws!” She laughs. “Some werewolf you are!”

Though her eyes are still peacefully green, everything in Danny’s stance is screaming _predator._ “Wanna see, hemogoblin?”

Carmilla’s lips pull up in a derisive smile. “Sure, _turn_ , fleabag. Laura prefers cats anyway,” she hisses and crouches.

Danny growls and does the same.

Laura steels her jaw. For the love of God…

“Enough,” she snaps, jumping up and eyeing the girls resolutely as they stare each other down. “For God’s sake, this is getting ridiculous!” She gestures to them both in turn. “We’ve just established _you’ve_ got the Power of Hastur in you – enough to kill the Light – _you’re_ a werewolf with a bite that’s arsenic to vampires, and there’s a friggin’ demonic mix of Lophiiformes and the Dean out for our heads. And yet you’re fighting over some vampire versus werewolf feud – and again, over me! There are bigger things at stake!”

“Ha, at _stake_. That’s funny,” LaFontaine mumbles with a lopsided grin, and Kirsch snorts in agreement.

Danny and Carmilla don’t unlock gazes for a second, but they both stand up straight and shake the tension from their bodies.

Perry, however, is wide-eyed and suddenly uniquely focused. “Wait.” She stares at Laura like seeing her for the first time. “What did you just say?”

“There are bigger things at stake here?” She frowns and huffs. “Seriously, it wasn’t that funn – ”

“No, before that.”

“What?”

“You said…” Her eyes widen even more, and she lifts a finger like she’s counting invisible items midair. “Carmilla can kill the Light with the Power of Hastur. And Danny can kill vampires with her bite.”

“Yes, that’s what – ”

LaFontaine jumps up with eyes as wide as Perry’s and rushes to the computer. “JP, would it work?”

 “Perry, LaFontaine, what are you thi –”

**I can’t be 100% sure. But, in theory, yes.**

LaFontaine twitches breathlessly. “It would work?”

 **It might.** **It just might.**

Laura looks at them in confusion. “What might – ”

“We’d have to time it exact, though,” Perry interrupts.

LaFontaine nods excitedly. “A completely simultaneous attack.”

“Do you think she’d see it coming?” Perry asks with a worried frown.

“A werewolf and a vampire working together? And Danny and Carmilla, at that?”

“Wait, what now?” Carmilla interjects.

“Ha, you’re right, she would _never_ see that coming.”

“Can someone _please_ tell us what’s going on?!” Danny finally yells heatedly.

Perry and LaFontaine share a meaningful look before Perry, twisting her fingers animatedly, turns to the group and says, “We may or may not have a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what would be an amazing birthday present? A comment, of course!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm, and possibly my favorite when it comes to character development.

“You look worried,” Carmilla says softly with lips against her temple, and Laura jolts out of her thoughts – indeed, her worries. Her frown smoothes when Carmilla brushes her lips against her cheek, but when she looks up, she sees she’s not the only one frowning.

“So do you.”

Carmilla smiles wryly and props herself up on an elbow.

“You first.”

She turns in Carmilla’s bed and glances over to her own, where Kirsch and Danny are slumbering quietly. With the plan so fully formed and everyone essential to every part of it – not to mention just how essential they’ve all become to each _other_ – and the fact that the two of them had indeed taunted and pissed off an unspeakable evil, Kirsch and Danny hadn’t dared leave the dorm and venture through the dangerous night to Danny’s again. With much griping from both Carmilla and Kirsch, and much insisting from Laura and Danny – Laura out of honest concern, but Danny, she suspects, out of some residual jealousy and an itch to be a thorn in her romantic (read: sex) life – they’d finally settled on the current arrangement. LaFontaine, Perry, and JP had gone back to Perry’s room, glancing back at the four remaining companions with a mix of trepidation and amusement.

Carmilla looks over at the two sleepers and purses her lips, but doesn’t comment again. Her previous comments of “We’re not adopting them are we? Because clearly – cat person,” and “Don’t clog the sink drain when you freshen up, furface,” – which, hypocrite much? – were enough to demonstrate her displeasure.

Laura smiles ruefully and leans up to brush a kiss over Carmilla’s pursed lips. She relaxes instantly and kisses back.

Kirsch rolls over in the bed and barks a snore, and Danny shoves him back to his side in her sleep, and they pull apart.

The frown that the kissing had eased creeps back within minutes.

“You’re doing it again,” Carmilla points out quietly, running a fingertip over her frown. “Let me guess: still wondering if killing the Light with the Power of Hastur will kill me?”

She’d asked about it when Perry and LaFontaine had explained the plan, and JP’s answer had not been wholly reassuring: _I’m fairly sure it shouldn’t_.

She sighs. “I don’t like betting your life on ‘fairly’.”

“Poor word choice, gingersnap. He was sure.”

Carmilla’s hand drawing circles on her back doesn’t do the trick, and she stares out to space uneasily. “Not sure enough.”

“Can you blame him though?” Carmilla asks after a moment, and Laura looks up at her to see her smiling sheepishly. “All this ‘the chosen one’ and ‘accidentally absorbing ancient evil powers into me’ and ‘accepting the sacrifice of the sword’ crap – it’s unprecedented territory – exempting, of course, Harry Potter in some roundabout way.”

She raises an eyebrow at the fact Carmilla knows Harry Potter, but – “Seriously? _Not_ reassuring. He _died._ ”

“And came back to life,” the vampire counters.

“By magic.”

“Bad example. I’m not Harry Potter.” She laughs. “Clearly.” Laura can feel her laugh vibrating through her body where they’re touching – surprisingly free, warm, and somewhat cheering.

Carmilla pulls her closer, the arm behind her back pressing between her shoulder blades. “Remember what the book said: Hastur meant for his power to live on. By accepting the sacrifice – by accepting I would die – the power will live on in me, won’t it?”

It makes sense, in some ways, but she can’t seem to shake the heavy weight of dread. Not even the girl’s bright, trusting and consoling eyes are enough.

“What if you’re wrong?” she asks softly. “What if by using the power ‘to completion’ – letting the power consume Lophiiformes – it consumes you?”

Carmilla shakes her head resolutely. “You can’t think like that, Laura.”

“Clearly, I can, and I am,” she replies sullenly, then pulls back sharply, frowning reproachfully. “Also, you really need to stop that ‘accepting the sacrifice’ crap. Accepting that you’ll die.”

Carmilla laughs again. “I’m not.” Laura’s frown deepens and Carmilla’s laugh turns into a fond but serious smile. “Really, I’m not.” She absentmindedly runs her fingers through her blond hair, lifting a few strands away from her face and following the path of her hands as they comb through it. “I’m refusing to. I promise.” Her eyes finally come back to her own. “I have too much to keep living for.”

Laura holds her gaze, hardly daring to breathe. She’s not sure what she’s hoping for – but this moment, excluding perhaps the night before – feels like the most intimate they’ve ever been.

And it feels just a little overwhelming.

Carmilla seems to sense it too, and slowly lifts her chin and presses a kiss to her lips. Somehow it feels less like an acknowledgement than like a break, because her heartbeat slows and she breathes again.

 “I know you’re worried,” Carmilla murmurs when she pulls away, “but you’re worrying about the wrong thing.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You’re worried about Lophiiformes. You should be worried about Maman.”

“Oh.”

Carmilla’s hand freezes in her hair. “I’m actually – ” She stops short, eyes thoughtful.

“What?”

The vampire shakes her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to worry you.”

She smiles regretfully. “Too late.” The vampire remains silent, frozen in place and staring pensively out in front of her. “Carm, what is it?”

The vampire swallows nervously.

“I’m more than worried.” A beat. “I’m scared.”

Her heart jumps into her throat, beating fast again.

Carmilla – unshakable, immortal, badass vampire – is scared.

Laura swallows fearfully. The girl was right, because she doesn’t know if she’s ever heard anything as worrying.

“You are?”

Carmilla nods and pulls back, running a hand through her own hair and frowning.

 “If it wasn’t clear enough yet, my mother is terrifying. Always has been, but like this?” She shakes her head dejectedly. “Her plans are always perfectly set and executed with absolute minimum effort for her. And there’s always an unexpected twist. Something neither me or Will or any of her other children could ever see coming.”

“You’ve got more eyes to spot it now. We’ll be ready.”

She shakes her head again, and her voice is urgent – fearful. “No. We won’t. There’ll be something. We just don’t know what it is yet.” She pauses, searching her face and apparently finding too little fear in her eyes – because though she’s afraid (of course she is), she thinks Carmilla needs her confidence more than her fears. Maybe she’s wrong.

Carmilla shakes her head and sighs in exasperation. “Why do you think she hasn’t come after us herself? Outside of the library, we’re not protected. We’re sitting ducks. Yet here we are – all of us, safe.”

She frowns. She hadn’t realized. “Why _doesn’t_ she come after us?

“Because she doesn’t need to.” Her voice is hollow. “Everything she’s ever done has been like this. She doesn’t hunt. She sets traps. She lures. She brings the prey to _her._ ”

A beat.

“It was the same with Ell.”

Laura stills in her arms completely, the girl’s name as unexpected as Carmilla’s suddenly vulnerable expression.

 “She knew something was amiss, even before my mother approached her,” Carmilla continues quietly, her voice so soft it nearly breaks. “Sure, she wanted to run away with me, she loved me, but I could see something was holding her back. All Maman had to do was tell her what she secretly wanted to know.”

Her breath rushes out in surprise. “I’m sure that’s not true. If she loved you – ”

Carmilla tilts her head and scoffs harshly. “Laura, in that time, loving me was a death sentence. If not that, at least a ticket straight to an asylum.” Her voice is raw and her eyes shine – with tears or with defeat, she’s not sure, but her gaze is anything but kind. “Finding out I was a monster just gave her an out she hadn’t wanted to admit she needed!”

Silence falls and Carmilla turns away from her, pressing her hand to her face and closing her eyes.

They were tears after all. 

“I’m sorry,” the vampire murmurs after a moment.

“You don’t need to be.”

Carmilla breathes in shakily and ducks her head on the pillow, refusing to meet her eyes but facing and sliding against her again. It’s a small compromise, but Laura understands. When she reaches out a hand and smoothes her hair from her face soothingly, she doesn’t pull away.

“You’re _not_ a monster.”

The vampire sighs heavily and closes her eyes. “I know.”

The words sound like anything but what their contents suggest, and more like a tired, perfunctory way to get her to drop the issue.

 She steels her jaw, but does. Silence falls again.

“And _I_ don’t need an out,” she says softly, finally.

Carmilla opens her eyes. “What?”

“If that’s what you’re worried about… that I’ll leave – all this…” She brushes her thumb below Carmilla’s eye and smiles reassuringly. “I won’t. I get scared, sure, but I’m not backing off.”

Carmilla frowns thoughtfully. “I know.”

“And if you think that the unexpected twist will be your mother convincing me I can’t lov – ” she cuts off. _Not yet._ “ – that I shouldn’t be with you… You’re wrong. That won’t happen.”

Carmilla searches her eyes. Her eyebrows are still pulled together in a heartbreakingly vulnerable way that makes Laura swallow over the emotion in her throat, and her eyes are honest to god shimmering, and Jesus, isn’t it just her luck she’d end up with a girl with eyes like this? She smiles at the thought and runs her thumb across the vampire’s bottom lip soothingly.

“It won’t.”

It’s enough, because though her eyes are still as luminous as before, Laura sees the sudden hope, and when Carmilla pulls her in and kisses her – passionate, thankful, and apologetic all in one – what she tastes is trust.

And maybe something approaching love.

The thought sends her heart beating faster than ever before, and her body responds immediately, pulling Carmilla against her in a way that’s unquestionably less chaste than the glancing touches and kind words of before. Her fingers dig into Carmilla’s smooth skin in the ridge of her back. The girl flicks her tongue out against her lips and then slides a leg between her own. Laura lets out a sharp aroused sound that has absolutely _no_ place in the current circumstances.

As though on cue, Kirsch snores loudly again, and they pull apart with a breathy laugh.

“Shh!” she hisses with a giggle, and Carmilla’s smile is brilliant. She slides a hand under her shirt and taps her fingers almost impatiently on her bare back while she glances over her shoulder at the sleeping couple not four feet away.

She sighs in frustration, but her tremulous mood is gone.

She’s not the only one – on both counts.

Also, does ‘incredibly turned on’ qualify as a mood?

“Nothing like a bit of making out to ease our worries, huh?” Carmilla says with a playful grin after a moment.

She smiles back and nods resolutely. “Tomorrow will settle things. The plan is good.”

Carmilla laughs softly, sheepishly. “You’re just saying that because it’s the only one we have.”

“No, I’m serious,” she chastises. “You say your mother has an ace up her sleeve? Well, so do we.”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow. “If you mean the werepuppy, I swear – ”

“You know I don’t.” _Not only,_ she thinks, but keeps mum _._ “Now stop worrying, and sleep with me.”

Carmilla snorts.

 “Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Mhmm.” The hand at her back slides to her front, and fingertips graze lightly across her bare breast. “If the sound of snoring _dog_ wasn’t making me just slightly nauseous, I totally would.” Carmilla leans over her, sliding her lips slowly along her neck and to her ear. “Sleep with you, that is.”

She breathes out shakily. Carmilla’s hand gently caresses her breast – a touch so light she’s almost embarrassed at the instant way she aches to curve into her hand.

“Carm, they’re _right_ there,” she whispers.

Her knee presses up subtly.

“I know,” the vampire replies lightly.

Well, that’s not ambiguous.

Her hand tenses on Carmilla’s elbow, and it briefly feels like the girl might push on and _God_ she’d have trouble resisting her – but then she pulls back with a glancing kiss to her heated cheek, and Laura breathes out in simultaneous relief and loss.

“You tease…” she murmurs.

Carmilla’s eyes sparkle. “You’re the one that insisted on taking in strays.”

Laura smiles. With a sigh, she settles into Carmilla’s arms around her and holds her gaze fondly.

“Sweet dreams, shortbread,” Carmilla purrs.

She raises an eyebrow. “Is that a short joke?”

“Of course not, lemon loaf.”

“Is that a _gay_ joke?”

Carmilla chuckles and tightens her embrace. “God, just go to sleep already.”

She smiles affectionately and snuggles into Carmilla’s arms, breathing out slowly in the crook of her neck. Carmilla slides her fingers through her hair and settles her hands there and at the small of her back.

She doesn’t think about tomorrow. Carmilla’s warmth and comfort are too close for that, driving away the darkness like a nightlight – or in this case, driving away the Light with her darkness. She chuckles quietly. Ironic.

Honestly, though, _this…_ it feels like the easiest and most natural thing in the world. She closes her eyes. Carmilla breathes quietly against her – she does breathe, after all – and Laura finds herself breathing in time with her, in and out, in and out, in and out… She’s at the edge of sleep within minutes. 

“You’re awake.”

Carmilla’s voice is louder than their whispers were, and she’s about the grumble a reply (“Now I am.”), when a different voice answers.

“Well-spotted,” Danny grouses from the other side of the room. “Laura?”

She feels Carmilla shift and look down at her. She keeps her eyes closed and her breath steady.

“Asleep.” Carmilla lifts her chin off her head and pulls her against her protectively.  “How’s the puppy?” she asks, and then lets out a soft snort of laughter. “My bad… I mean, the _other_ puppy.”

Danny huffs. “ _Hilarious_. He’ll be fine.”

“He’s been unusually quiet.”

“I know. I guess everything is taking its toll. He’s only human, after all.”

“Unlike us,” the vampire hums.

“Unlike us,” Danny agrees. A short silence falls. “You ever met a werewolf before?”

Carmilla shakes her head. “That’s why I didn’t recognize the smell.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Carmilla chuckles, and Laura’s having trouble keeping a smile from her face. “I’m kidding. I still don’t catch any hint you’re anything other than human. It’s kind of impressive,” she concedes

“Well, it’s not mutual.”

Carmilla tenses. “What?”

“You _do_ smell,” Danny says simply.

Carmilla hisses in warning. “Would you like to revise that statement?”

The werewolf barks a laugh. “I mean, you have a _smell._ I thought in the beginning it was some weird sweetbread slash organs diet – thymus, blood sausage, livers, whatever – and maybe a friend with a cat, but yeah. You’ve got a smell.”

“Splendid.”

“Also, you use too much conditioner.”

Carmilla snorts.

“About before…” she says haltingly after a moment.

“When?” Danny pipes up instantly, and Laura gets the distinct impression she’s grinning from ear to ear. “When you admitted I terrify the crap out of you?”

Carmilla huffs disagreeably and shifts in the bed, clearly agitated. “I think you and I have very different memories of ‘before’.”

There’s definitely a smile in Danny’s voice. “Whatever floats your boat…”

A short silence falls, and she thinks maybe the moment’s passed, but then –

“I’m sorry,” Carmilla finally murmurs.

Laura hardly dares to breathe. Being witness to this conversation feels like coming across the secret meeting of two predators on the same territory and finding them walking apprehensively side by side instead of on opposite ends of the field with their hackles raised.

 “About what exactly?” Danny jokes.  

Her arms tense around her. “Don’t push it.”

Danny laughs. “It’s cool. You’re the first hater I’ve had to deal with – about being bi _or_ about being a werewolf, actually – so I guess I should call myself lucky.”

Carmilla sighs sadly. “Yeah, you definitely should.”

Laura wonders how many times Carmilla’s been rejected in her long, long life – a life spanning trials and executions for ‘crimes against nature’, badges of pink triangles as damning as stars of David, Stonewall riots, and so much more – and what she’s seen of the enormity of cruelty of society for things as simple as holding hands or a kiss.

The thought saddens her more than she expected.

“Are there other supernaturals in the Summer Society?” the girl asks suddenly.

“There are.” She hears Danny shift on the bed. “But I’m not ratting them out if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No. Just curious.”

A beat.

“I didn’t out you to them either, by the way.”

She raises an eyebrow before she knows what she’s doing, because that’s certainly unexpected.

Carmilla doesn’t seem to notice. “Would I be in trouble if they knew?”

“Well, as you said, I guess vampires and werewolves aren’t known for being particularly friendly with each other.”

“Yet here we are.”

“Not sure how the two of us are the best example for friendly camaraderie.”

“Well, we haven’t killed each other yet,” she points out.

Danny laughs softly. “True.”

Laura wonders at the common ground they’ve suddenly seemed to have found when just a few hours before, they were literally at each other’s throats.

Perhaps it’s _because_ of the endless fighting that in this quiet moment they can let it fall away.

“About that…” Carmilla shifts uneasily. “If you’re a werewolf, why go through the charade of attempting to stake me the last few weeks? Why not shift and have done with it?”

Danny barks a laugh. “And freak Laura the hell out in the process? No thanks. And I didn’t know about the poison bite thing, did I?” She pauses, and Laura can hear her shift on the bed – awkward, restive. “Besides, I’m not some animal. I’ve never killed anyone.”

“But you’re not above staking me?”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Danny grumbles begrudgingly.

“No thanks to you for all the times you _tried_.” Carmilla pauses, and when Laura dares to peek out through her eyelashes, she sees her narrow her eyes at Danny suspiciously. “…You _were_ seriously trying to kill me then, weren’t you?” she asks warily.

She feels, more than hears, Danny shrug behind her.

“Like I said, I’m not a killer,” she answers simply. “You just needed to be stopped.”

Carmilla’s eyebrows shoot up, and her mouth opens in a comical ‘o’, before shakes her head with something between amusement and irritation.

“Goddamnit…”

“What?” Danny perks up.

The vampire clicks her tongue and chuckles darkly. “Way to steal my thunder, Big Ben.”

“Huh?”

“I was about to give myself a serious pat on the back for fighting a werewolf and living to tell the tale. You weren’t even trying?”

“To kill you? No.”

“Great. Way to burst my bubble,” she grouses gloomily.

Danny laughs. Laura smiles subtly, eyes still half-open to catch Carmilla’s sour expression.

Stupid vampire.

“Seriously, what werewolf isn’t a killer? Just my luck…” Carmilla grumbles again after a moment, and _seriously_ this girl really is a sore loser… 

“Maybe today,” Danny says after a moment. “Just a little bit.”

Carmilla snorts, and her wrist – clean and bloodless – twitches at her back. “Yeah, I kind of got that.”

A quiet moment falls as both girls muse about their unusual rivalry and Laura works to subdue her smile and keep from alerting her girlfriend to her sly presence.

Seriously, this is some whole new level Twilight situation.

“Just because I’m not a killer, doesn’t mean I _wouldn’t,_ if I needed to,” Danny says cautiously after a moment. Then she snorts and adds with a smile in her voice: “And no, I’m not talking about some kind of rematch. Imagine Laura’s fury.”

She can feel Carmilla’s eyes on her, and then her smiling lips brush across her forehead. “Yeah, there’d definitely be hell to pay.”

“Which, chances are, only one of us would be paying.”

“Mhmm,” she agrees.

“By which I mean me, of course.”

Carmilla’s low chuckle vibrates through them both. “Please, I’m like 350 years old. You’re practically a newborn.”

“A newborn who still kicked your ass.”

Carmilla harrumphs noncommittally.

“Also, saved your ass,” Danny continues.

Laura’s smile widens at the stubborn silence from the vampire holding her.

“ _And_ you’re terrified of me.”

“Not,” Carmilla snaps.

“I’m serious though. Just because I haven’t killed, doesn’t mean I won’t. If that _bitch –_ ”Danny cuts off, and Laura gets the sense of gnashing teeth from the other side of the room, as well as a sudden awareness at how loud she spat the words, because her next are hissed between tight teeth: “ _–_ takes even one step towards Laura or Kirsch or the two redheads, or hell, even _you_ – I won’t hesitate. I’ll rip her throat out, swear to God.”

She can’t say she’s not impressed – and maybe just slightly queasy – at Danny’s resolve.

“Well, you’re an _eager_ puppy, at least,” Carmilla replies with a venomous drawl.

“Screw you,” Danny snaps, but its sharp edge is lost in her laugh.

Silence falls again, Laura’s sure the conversation is over, but then the vampire tenses again and presses her chin on her head to stare at the other side of the room.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

A beat.

“You already said that yesterday.”

“I mean for stepping up.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a fair fight,” she murmurs quietly. “Either of us alone against my mother – even you in your wolf form or me as my furry counterpart – we would never make it.” Her voice is tremulous and uncertain, and Laura can hear the underlying worry again – the worry she’d hoped they’d both buried for the time being. But when she speaks again, she hears the hope they’d taken from each other’s comfort: “But maybe – and I’m at a serious risk of puking my guts out just admitting it so don’t make a bigger deal out of it than it is – ” she interjects with a disgruntled laugh, “maybe together… we can win.”

 “I hope so.”

Laura can’t help the smile from pulling at her lips, and cuddles closer against Carmilla. Carmilla sighs and settles her arms around her and then runs a hand absentmindedly across her hair.

“You don’t have to worry, by the way,” the vampire says suddenly, just when Laura was sure they’d both decided to truly sleep.

“What?” Danny snaps like she’s coming out of a deep thought – or a pensive stare.

She’s not far off, apparently: “I see the way you look at her and at us. At _me_ , when I’m with her.”

“I don’t lo– ”

“Yes, you do,” Carmilla interrupts, her voice passive. “You look like you’re preparing to _stop_ me or something. Like you’re itching to kick my ass any moment I so much as look at her.”

Danny is silent for a moment. “Do you blame me?”

“No.” A beat. “But you’re wrong. Go ahead. Protect her. But she doesn’t need it. She does fine without either of us.”

Silence falls, and the room seems to hold its breath. Laura feels her heart beat in her throat. Her eyes are still closed, but she just knows Carmilla and Danny have their gazes locked above her, and someone’s thrown away the key.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Carmilla says carefully, and tightens her arms reflexively. “No more than you would.”

“I have trouble believing that,” Danny mutters.

“I know,” she says kindly, honestly. “But I hope you will, eventually. Because knowing what you are now – I gotta admit I’m a bit more hesitant about having some kind of lover’s duel.”

Danny laughs, and it shatters the tension in the best way possible. “Chickenshit.”

Carmilla smiles back good-naturedly. “Pick your battles, and maybe you’ll get to be as old and wise as me.”

Danny barks a laugh. “Getting old is mandatory. Getting wise – _clearly_ – optional.”

“Dick.”

“Bitch.”

Laura pushes back the grin and sighs into the crook of her girlfriend’s neck – Carmilla’s warm body as heartening as the unexpected turn between the two supernaturals. Things have really gone full circle.

“Goodnight,” Carmilla says softly.

“Hope it’s not our last,” Danny replies.

Carmilla’s arms tighten around her and she brushes her lips across her forehead. “…Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos and a comment! Means the world to me!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves...

This plan, unlike the last one, is _not_ graceless. In fact, Laura thinks it might even have a certain dramatic flair and poetic justice to it that none of them could have foreseen a few days ago. Their hands tighten on stakes and crossbows and tridents. Their feet trudge onward self-assuredly across empty streets. Their shoulders are pushed forward against the very fitting high winds attempting to push them back.

Because this plan – it does more than just instill confidence and a sense purpose in the six of them as they march to the pit. It gives them enough hope to keep the fear at bay and keep their heads held high.

She looks around at her friends and smiles proudly.

If they’re going down, they won’t go down without a fight.

“Do you even know how to use that?” Perry asks LaFontaine suddenly.

The redhead shoulders the crossbow and pats the round of bolts at their belt proudly. “‘Course I do. I’m not going to be sidelined this battle again, I can promise you that.”

“Sidelined?”

LaFontaine scoffs. “Hello – pod-peopled, bike rack, then concussion protocol?”

“Right.” Perry still eyes them apprehensively. “Just don’t hit one of us, okay?”

“As long as you don’t try to talk the Dean down?”

Perry purses her lips. “But what if – ”

“ _No!”_ they all shout in unison, and Perry ducks her head, appropriately chastised. Laura smiles – barring Perry, they’d been unanimous on cutting out that part of Perry’s plan.

They’re only a few blocks from the pit now.

“Kirsch, you good?” Danny asks the Zeta beside her. This morning they all woken up to see him curled into the tiniest ball imaginable against Danny while the redhead claimed the rest of the bed, but somehow the many pep talks, the few hours of sharpening stakes, and the repeated reminders of the plan hadn’t roused him the same as it had the rest.

“Huh?” Kirsch looks up in surprise and nearly misses a beat of his robotic rhythm. “Oh, yeah. Fine.”

Danny frowns, and Laura joins her. He’s been like this all morning. He doesn’t look exactly… frightened, but more _muted_ , like everything passing over him is hollowing him out.

Her heart goes out in sympathy – it’s a lot to take in.

Carmilla squeezes her hand, and Laura looks up at her.

The vampire’s smile is consoling and hopeful – not her distinctive cocky smirk of their last plan, but something honest and real that brings Laura right back to the night before. Today is not a day for Carmilla to act aloof and disaffected – especially not with _her_ – and though she wishes they could both be more than _hopeful_ in the face of what’s to come and the danger they’re walking straight into, she knows it wouldn’t be sincere. There are real fears, but hope is stronger than fear.

“You okay, Buffy?” the vampire jokes, and _there’s_ her characteristic sass.

Laura hadn’t realized she needed it.

She nods shakily. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go say hi to your mother-in-law,” Carmilla says with a playful nudge.

Even though her palms are sweaty and she’s holding onto Carmilla’s hand for dear life, she can’t help laughing. “I think this rendezvous with the parents might have a disastrous end…”

Carmilla smirks. “That’s the spirit.”

The edge of the pit comes into view, and as one, they slow down and catch each other’s gazes.

“We’re doing this, then?” Carmilla asks, looking at everyone in turn.

Perry clutches to LaFontaine’s side, who nods resolutely and nocks an arrow.

Kirsch weights the small wood-tipped trident – Laura’s idea when the Zeta wouldn’t deviate from his traditional weapon – and checks the rest of them strapped to his back.

Danny eyes him with an encouraging smirk. She’s still wearing her Summer Society T-shirt, and her hair is just a tad more frizzy than normal, but there’s a steadfast tension in her shoulders and a hungry glint in her eyes.

And Laura? She hefts the dual canisters of bear spray and shakes them in preparation.

They’re _in._

Carmilla nods with an approving smile and crests the edge of the pit.

The light is pulsing dully at the bottom, bringing the barren landscape in sharp contrast despite the muted twilight tones the setting sun gives them. The group stands steadfastly at the edge, waiting with hearts beating fast and brains growing accustomed to the taste of adrenaline.

Not for a second does Laura doubt their nemesis knows they’re there.

The light flares, and they shield their eyes. As it fades, she squints against it – and there, in the epicenter, standing silent as a saint – she sees her. Turned away from them and back ramrod straight. Outfit unchanged and as spotless as ever. Blonde hair pulled into a bun resting on her bowed head like a halo.

Her heart shoots into her throat.

This is happening.

Like, _really_ happening.

The Dean That Devours – glowing, brilliant, terrible – lifts her head and turns on the spot ever so slowly. As her face comes into view, a wicked smile spreads across her lips.

 _Jeez_ , does she have a flair for the dramatic…

“Hello Mother,” Carmilla snaps when the Dean’s glowing eyes turn to her.

The glowing light pulses, and Laura gets the queasy feeling that it brightens in _delight._

“Ah, Carmilla. Finally. I’ve been waiting for days.” She steps forward, stilettos sending up a cloud of dust.

“Starving, I’m guessing?” Carmilla shoots back.

She tilts her head. “I had enough _almosts_ to keep me satisfied.” She surveys them calmly until her eyes land on Kirsch, and her smile widens. “How’s the mark, cherrypie?”

The Zeta flinches and retreats behind Danny, who puts up a hand protectively and steels her jaw.

The Dean chuckles and turns back to Carmilla. “Come to turn yourself in, have you?”

The vampire shakes her head. “I brought the cavalry.”

“Don’t make me laugh.” She does exactly that. “Five humans is your cavalry?”

Carmilla quirks her head with a cocky grin, eyeing Danny. “Not quite.”

The Dean looks at her daughter with a curious frown, looking her up and down and apparently not recognizing the child she raised from the dead. “I admit myself… disappointed. I’d hoped you’d come alone. Perhaps on bended knee I could have found it in my heart to offer you another deal.”

“No,” Carmilla snaps. “No more deals.” She glances at Laura and squeezes her hand.

The Dean takes in the subtle exchange with interest. “Ah, you brought your pet. Was that truly wise? It would be a shame if something happened to her.”

Carmilla twitches, but Laura holds her hand resolutely, and the girl remains silent, refusing to rise to the challenge. The Dean tilts her head in surprise, but it doesn’t hold her back.

“I’m just saying,” she continues, “if you care for her as much as your actions suggest, perhaps there is still a deal to be made. For _her_ sake. For the sake of _love_ – ”

Laura opens her mouth to reply, because the word they haven’t had a moment’s rest to admit to each other feels like poison from the Dean’s lips, sacrilege to something sacred that the monster has no right to speak of – but Carmilla beats her to it, her voice low and threatening: “The only thing you know about love is how to destroy it, Mother. And I’m done.” She tenses her jaw and squeezes her hand. “We end this today.”

The Dean eyes her curiously and tilts her head with a probing, calculating smile. Slowly, it drips from her face and she rolls her shoulders. “Bad idea.” Her eyes flash, and she steps closer. “Because the Light is hungry. And so am I.”

They take a step forward as one. Carmilla and Danny take another.

Carmilla’s hand slips from hers, and the girl looks back once more.

It’s not goodbye, she tells herself.

Her heart hammers in her throat.

 _I promise,_ she remembers.

It’s not goodbye.

Carmila’s smile is wistful. 

The Dean laughs and the moment is gone. She punches out her hands and her palms glow with light. Her smile is positively demented as she surveys her attackers.

“This is just too easy,” she grumbles with a laugh, and aims at the oncoming girls.

Something shoots past Laura’s ear with a wonderfully rewarding whooshing sound and the Dean pulls back in surprise as a crossbow bolt slices open her shoulder. She eyes the wound in astonishment and fingers the rip in her blouse.

Laura smiles at the satisfaction that not only drawing blood but also destroying an article of the Dean’s pristine wardrobe brings.

LaFontaine reloads the crossbow.

“How _dare_ you!” The Dean screeches, and the halo of light around her pulses and her palms glow as she glares at LaFontaine. LaFontaine flinches, but stands her ground.

In the brief moment of distraction, Carmilla glances over to Danny. Her body is poised and ready, her hands already tensed into claws.

“You ready, Fido?”

Danny grins and rolls her shoulders.

“Born ready, Bagheera. Race you to first blood.”

“It’s on.”

And then they’re running.

And Laura is mesmerized.

Carmilla pulls back her lips in a snarl, and her canines catch the light – half vampire, half panther, impossibly long, and dangerously sharp. Her hands – already hooked into claws – become what they imitated, and blacken like she’s dipped them in oil – oil that slides up her arms and swirls in tendrils across her neck. As she watches – as Carmilla runs – her shoulders bunch and her body lengthens and she jumps forward and twists in midair like a cat falling from a great height. Laura blinks and Carmilla lands – on all fours.  

The panther she’s become growls and lashes out menacingly.

The Dean glares at her daughter, but there’s a hint of admiration in her eyes.

“My pet, this form is _so_ unbecom – ”

A menacing snarl cuts her off – and it isn’t Carmilla.

A giant _something_ steps out from behind a slanted builder and Laura clutches her bear spray because _holy_ crap, do wolves get that big?

The red wolf stalks closer, head low, teeth bared, ears erect and hackles raised and Laura doesn’t buy for a _second_ that Danny is stronger as a girl than as a wolf. She towers far above Carmilla, even crouched though she is. Her eyes glow yellow – the same terrifying color as when she attacked Carmilla, but Laura’s strangely consoled by the sight because the same formidable strength radiates from her – and this time, she’s side by side with Carmilla.

“ _What?”_ the Dean breathes, and Laura’s heart rate spikes in hope at the tremor in her voice. “A werewolf? How is this possible?”

The two creatures snarl in unison and stalk closer.

The Dean takes an uncertain step back, eyes trained on Danny and Carmilla and hands frozen in midair with palms still glowing.

She’s _afraid._ Perhaps Carmilla alone she could have overcome, and maybe she could have resisted a werewolf – but combined?

Laura smirks. She thinks not.

As though consolidating her inevitable loss, LaFontaine shoots another arrow. It catches in the Dean’s immaculate bun and her blonde hair tumbles over her shoulders. The Dean gasps like LaFontaine’s arrow knocked off her crown instead of loosening her hair. Her blonde hair shining with light pulsing around her only adds to the halo effect.

 _Let’s take this angel down,_ she thinks, and as though they read her mind, both Carmilla and Danny attack. They leap forward with mirrored snarls, and the Dean’s eyes widen in fear.

Instantly, the Dean dissolves with a screech and a flutter of wings and then the light is everywhere – swirling around them in a swarm of colorless ghosts.

Laura’s eyes go wide – she’s seen this before.

A swarm of shadows.

A murder of crows.

Screeching, clawing at them.

Laura clutches her bear spray vigilantly.

And then they’re everywhere at once.

Two twirl like twin demons above Carmilla, and she snaps and claws at them – without success. Three surround Danny and she growls and jumps and feints and attacks. Kirsch spears one with his trident, but it twists around the sharp points and escapes.

One of the fiends lunges toward LaFontaine. They shoot another arrow, but it flies wide of its target, and then the clawing, cawing, mangled mess of light catches them in the chest and knocks them back. LaFontaine lurches and hits a block of plaster ten feet away.

“LaFontaine!” Perry screams, and runs towards them. Laura follows, looking back in terror at the rest of the group still fighting the shadows – the Light.

_Oh God…_

“They’re unconscious,” Perry says as soon as she skids to her knees by their limp body.

An avalanche of gravel shoots their way as one of Kirsch’s tridents splits apart a rock.

“Quickly – ”

She and Perry pull them out of harm’s way. Blood dribbles down their neck and Perry’s fingers come back red, but though her hands are shaking, she cradles her friend’s prone body in her lap, ducks behind a boulder and hoist the crossbow onto her elbow.

“Go,” she whispers without another word, and with a furtive glance to the battlefield, lays a protective arm across LaFontaine’s chest.

Laura nods wordlessly and sprints back to the battle.

All her friends are still standing, and she runs towards Kirsch as he stabs his trident towards one of the ghosts – his face shining with sweat – completely unaware of the other shapeless enemy flying at him from behind.

Her feet pound across the uneven ground and a guttural scream escapes her throat as she jumps high, aims both cans of bear spray, and presses the triggers. The acrid substance jets from the canisters, hitting the pale apparition straight on. It screeches and jitters and flails and launches itself back to the center of the pit.

Her eyes are wide and she’s frozen on the spot.

“Holy crap.”

She can’t believe that _worked._

Kirsch turns to her and smiles in wonder.

She owes her dad the best present _ever_ next Father’s Day.

But they’re not out of the fire yet.

The rest of the pale ghosts swirl and screech, dodging feline claws and canine jaws as they swipe and snap at them like hunting geese. In a whirlwind of light, the fluttering specters reassemble, and with a blinding flash, the Dean rematerializes on bended knee in the center of the pit. Her head snaps up, and her eyes burn into Laura’s.

“You will pay for that,” she mutters, and Laura’s throat clamps up in fear.

Then a black shadow launches itself between them and rakes its nails across the Dean’s face with a vicious growl. It lands cleanly on its feet while the Dean screams in pain.

Carmilla turns to her, tilts her head, and squints – and yeah, Laura’s pretty sure the panther just _smirked_ at her.

The Dean staggers to her feet, one hand pressed against her face and the other out in front of her as Danny approaches. Light shoots from her palm erratically, burning craters into the ground around her. Danny dodges just in time. The spot she jumped away from glows and smolders quietly.

“No!” the Dean yells. “Stay back!”

The two predators circle around her, and she looks around her skittishly, wielding her glowing hands and sending streaks of light towards her stalkers, but they dodge them easily. It’s a cat and mouse game, and every time Carmilla or Danny lunge forward, the Dean’s sharp movement to avoid their bite becomes just a little… duller. She sidesteps slower, and Danny’s bite snaps closed just a bit nearer. She swerves left, and Carmilla’s claw whips through empty air to her right – inches from her hip.

She looks down at the scene in awe and hope returns like an unexpected friend.

They’re winning.

She feels Kirsch at her shoulder – tall, comforting, and equally triumphant.

“This isn’t happening!” The Dean screams, and she pulls her arm back as Danny lunges toward it.

Her retaliating flash of light shines off Danny’s ochre fur, but misses.

Carmilla strikes out and rips a piece of the Dean’s pencil skirt to shreds, revealing and indecent amount of thigh.

“No!”

The counterattack is too slow.

They’re actually _winning._

Carmilla and Danny crouch simultaneously, circling and eyeing each other as they time their attack.

Laura holds her breath.

This is it.

Then the Dean looks up – sees her. Sees _Kirsch._ And her eyes glow with the most horrendous, hollowing light she’s ever seen.

Instantly, Kirsch grunts in pain and stiffens. If it wasn’t so unexpected and perplexing, the way he snaps to attention – shoulders pulling back, back tensing up, arms going rigid, hands balling into fists by his side  – would have been almost comical.

However, when he turns his head slowly, mechanically, toward her and his eyes are nothing but white abysses sucking in the bright light around them, Laura can find absolutely nothing comical about it.

“Kirsch – ”

His hand shoots out against her throat – clamps down, squeezes, and lifts.

The canisters of bear spray clank to the ground as she claws at his muscular arm, gasping for breath and desperately holding herself up as Kirsch lifts her off her feet. Her throat is burning, her head is pounding, and she can’t breathe, can’t think, can barely see through the haze of blinking lights in her vision – nothing but Kirsch’s empty, unfeeling eyes and the brightly glowing handprint scar on his shoulder.

Danny barks in alarm, and from the corner of her vision, she sees Carmilla’s bright eyes as she turns from her target and locks gazes with her.

Behind her, the Dean smiles.

_No…_

The split second Carmilla is distracted is enough for the Dean to lash out and send Carmilla reeling backwards into a slab of plaster with a sickening crunch. When she slides to the ground, a smear of blood blemishes the pale wall.

_No!_

Her scream is silent, but her nails are drawing blood on Kirsch arm.

Carmilla stirs, lifting herself to her shaky forepaws with a low growl.

The Dean approaches the fallen warrior with a smile and takes a threatening step closer, raising a glowing hand like a claw and pulling it back to strike.

“Car-mil-la – ” Laura sputters.

Suddenly, a shadow blocks out the halo of the Dean and sharp jaws snap at her drawn hand. The Dean dodges and avoids the bite, and Danny’s teeth close on air, but she lands gracefully on her paws in front of Carmilla and turns to the Dean with her hackles raised and a deep snarl rumbling in her throat. Behind her, Carmilla struggles to her paws, whipping her tail back and forth during the brief reprieve Danny’s defense gives her.

She wants to sigh in relief – she’s okay, she’s okay – but… She. Can’t. Breathe.

“Miss Hollis, call back your pets.”

The Dean’s voice is unyielding as marble.

Danny and Carmilla crouch, hackles raised and tails unmoving.

Kirsch squeezes, and she whimpers in pain.

“ _Now_.”

She keeps her lips shut, but Kirsch is squeezing tears into her eyes, and even with her blurry vision she can see Danny and Carmilla bow their heads and retreat.

“Good girls.”

Kirsch drops her to the ground and she sucks in breath of air before he pulls her against him and clutches her in a headlock. Her fingers scratch at his arm, and he tightens his grip until she wheezes for breath again and the sparks of light in her vision turn into fluttering shadows.

“Kirsch – please – this isn’t you,” she pleads.

A high, amused laugh sounds close by.

“It sure isn’t.”

Kirsch loosens his hold, and she can breathe again. Her vision washes back in bright colors – and the Dean’s face floats into the center of it.

Smiling.

Victorious.

Pupils shining like portals to the pits of hell.

She quakes in fear and whimpers, the soaring hope she felt burned to ash in the true face of their foe.

The Dean laughs again – the horrifying double laugh of before.

“Do you really think you could win against me?” She turns with a flourish, standing between the four of them like the center of a triquetra. “Carmilla, darling, you know better than that.”

The panther hisses and feints an attack, but the Dean raises a finger and Kirsch jerks his arm threateningly. Carmilla retreats instantly, eyes bright and trained on the tightness of the Zeta’s arm as Laura holds on desperately to it and to consciousness.

The Dean’s smile widens, the pleasure at her merciless control flashing in her glowing eyes. She turns to Danny.

The wolf’s ears flatten against her head and her eyes shine up apprehensively.

“I have to admit I’m impressed at this unlikely foe,” the Dean drawls, stepping closer. “A werewolf. Quite the rarity.” She tilts her head like examining a priceless antique, and Danny shifts restively. “What a shame it’s going to have to die. It would have been lovely to add a little canine warmth to our family, wouldn’t it?” She reaches out a hand to Danny like petting a pup. “With the right training, perhaps…”

Danny growls and snaps at the extended hand.

The Dean’s smiles. “Or not.”

She saunters back to Laura.

Oh god, her eyes, her smile – it’s the stuff of nightmares.

Laura rakes her nails across Kirsch’s arms and kicks her feet and she’s nearly got him – she’s nearly –

He recovers with a grunt, and she’s caught tighter than ever.

The Dean laughs heartily and claps her hands theatrically.

“Wonderful!” Her eyes shine hungrily as she looks her up and down. “Carmilla, this one has some _fire_! Definitely more than the last stray you took in. What was her name? Ell?”

Carmilla growls again, and the Dean smiles cruelly at the effect her words have.

“Oh, don’t worry, _this_ one I’m not going to sacrifice.”

Carmilla’s growl dies in her throat, and her eyes flick in fear between her mother and her girlfriend.

 “As much pleasure as it would give me to rip her throat out in front of you, I have other plans.” She pauses dramatically, and when she speaks, her smile is wicked. “I always wanted another girl.”

Laura’s heart stops along with her breathing.

The Dean crouches down to Carmilla, who retreats from her touch. She flicks a finger at Kirsch, who twists his arm viciously. She can’t hold back a sharp cry of pain and closes her eyes to push it back and focus on _breathing._

Carmilla freezes, and the Dean runs her fingers through her dense fur to behind her ears, oddly reminiscent of the way she did on the video that had utterly shattered her heart. 

Laura cringes in time with Carmilla.

“She’s going to make a lovely replacement for _you_ , my daughter.”

Carmilla’s eyes go wide and she cowers from the Dean’s touch as she presses against her neck – down, down, down _beast._ Carmilla bows reluctantly until she’s pressed to the ground in submission. Her eyes close at the same time she bares her teeth.

“Oh, shush. Rebellion never suited you.”

Carmilla’s snarl falters, and she closes her eyes.

Laura does the same against the sight.

Seeing Carmilla give up was painful enough the first time.

“Do you remember the taste of my blood?” the Dean asks innocently, and Laura’s eyes flutter open to see her still caressing Carmilla’s fur with sickening sweetness. Carmilla looks up at her and quivers under her touch.

“Don’t – touch – her!” Laura grunts against the pressure on her throat and struggles, pushes, pulls – fails. The Dean looks up at her with a smile, and brushes her hand over Carmilla’s neck pointedly.

“I’m sure turning her won’t quite be the same this time. A few sips, a quick jerk of cherrypie’s arm, and this futile rebellion of hers will be quickly quelled. She’ll be mine. As you never were, _mein liebes Kind_. It’s quite effective, wouldn’t you say? The Light’s power?” Kirsch straightens like a soldier standing to attention, and her feet nearly lift off the ground as he pulls her with him.

_Breathe._

“I’ll have her kill the wolf first,” the Dean snaps as she straightens and turns to Danny. The girl refuses to cower. “Newborn vampire against her werewolf ex.”

Danny’s eyes widen.

“Yes, I know who you are, dear,” the Dean says with a malicious smile. “And more importantly, who she is to _you_. It doesn’t take much to predict who will win that fight.”

_Oh God._

Danny looks up and catches her shimmering eyes, and Laura’s stomach drops to see the fear – not of the Dean, but of _her._ She tries to shake her head. _I won’t, I won’t, I won’t._ It isn’t lost on her that Danny is probably thinking the same thing, and that if the Dean’s blood is truly as powerful as she says, Danny will be the only one with a choice in the matter.

Danny tears her eyes away and bows her head. The Dean smiles and sweeps past her triumphantly.

“And then I’ll take care of _you_ , my thankless daughter.” She looks between them as she and Carmilla look up at her in terror. The Dean laughs in pleasure at their mirrored expressions. “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t have her kill you too,” she says with a flippant wave of a hand. “No, that pleasure will be mine. After centuries of rebellion, deception, interfering, and betrayal – for _humans_ no less – you can’t begin to fathom how I’ll enjoy pressing a stake into your heart.”

Carmilla’s eyes are vivid and pleading. The Dean’s are bright and pitiless.

“And your pet – well, _my_ pet, by that point – will just have to watch.”

They look away from the Dean at the same time, and catch each other’s tremulous, fearful gazes, and she knows they’re both imagining it, yielding to the thought in the face of their imminent defeat and _God,_ Laura wishes Carmilla was in her human form again, snapping something snarky and forcing the Dean to make a mistake, or decking her in the face and saving their asses, or even only to look at her face once more. But her eyes – they’re all Carmilla. Bright brown orbs shining with fear, regret, and something that looks horribly like goodbye.

 _I promise,_ she remembers. _I have too much to keep living for._

She closes her eyes against the sight and the thought, as Carmilla does the same.

“Now, to business.”

When she opens them again, it’s to the sight of the Dean opening her own wrist with her fangs. The blood drips onto her lips like macabre lipstick, and she doesn’t bother to wipe it away.

Carmilla swipes her tail back and forth and whines. Laura had no idea panthers could whine – or that they could look like they were about to _cry_.

The Dean raises her wrist like a glass of champagne and nods to Carmilla.

“ _Prost, Schatz_.”

She steps towards her. Laura’s heart skips a terrified beat.

No. Over her dead body.

Danny whines, shifting back and forth on her paws and eyeing Carmilla for direction. Carmilla remains pressed to the ground, chest heaving in fear and eyes bright and distraught as she watches her mother approach the girl she loves.

Kirsch twitches his arm threateningly.

The Dean smiles at the complete control she has over them all.

“No, I won’t – ” Laura grunts, but Kirsch cuts off of her words with a sharp twist that threatens to snaps her neck.

Hopeless tears squeeze out from her eyes.

The Dean isn’t wrong about the control.

Carmilla rises to her front paws nonetheless, daring to challenge the instant death Kirsch dangles over Laura’s head.

Laura tries her best to nod. She’d choose death over _this_ – the future she sees in the bloody wrist before her.

Kirsch shifts his hold and his fingers dig into her jaw, parting her mouth as the Dean approaches with the only thing she’ll drink for centuries to come.

“Carm – ”

The panther breathes heavily and steps forward, eyes wide and lost – but slowly regaining their defiant glint. Danny does the same.

 “Back off, or she dies,” the Dean snaps, eyeing both creatures at her feet with sudden apprehension. “Really, Carmilla? Her life will be so much more meaningful in service to me, than in a pitifully short love affair with you.”

She steps closer. Carmilla snarls.

“ _Down_. I’m _elevating_ her.”

Her wrist drips into a morbid puddle of red at her feet.

Laura fights futilely against Kirsch’s grip, but good _god_ he’s strong.

The Dean takes in her struggle with curiosity. “Soon she’ll be mine.” She lifts her bleeding wrist, and Laura twitches as a drop falls through the air in slow motion. It splatters onto her cheek – warm, wet – and the Dean smiles in triumph.

Laura narrows her eyes and something snaps.

No.

Just _no._

With a feral scream and all the power she can muster, she pivots and slams her elbow into Kirsch’s chest.

Solar plexus.

Instep.

Nose.

Groin.

After all the years of Krav Maga, somehow Miss Congeniality’s instructions – remember to _SING_ – are the ones that kick in.

And, apparently, _work_ , because Kirsch reels back with a groan, clutching his nose and crotch and keeling over, and she gulps in breaths of welcome air as she stumbles back.

She’s free.

Silence falls as though the air is preparing to scream, but it isn’t the air that finally does: it’s the Dean, with a screech as sharp as glass.  She flies the last meter forward, eyes flashing and brandishing her slit wrist in front of her like a bottle of poison, and Laura does what her body seems to do best, without so much as the inkling of a suggestion from her brain – a reflex tiger strike straight to the throat.

The Dean shoots back in alarm, clutching her throat and leaving a smear of her own blood across her chest. Her eyes are wide and surprised, and her mouth is a small, absurd little ‘O’. Laura could laugh – and, despite the adrenaline and fear still coursing through her veins, she does.

_Take that, bitch._

Her laugh – raw, scratchy, but insolent – is the command that jolts both Danny and Carmilla to action. Like mirror images, they leap at the retreating Dean. Claws and paws scratch into her skin like attacking shadows – and their jaws snap in unison into two sides of her neck.

The Dean shrieks again – but it’s cut off by a wet, gurgling sound, and then the front of her pale blouse is soaked in blood.

She’s ready for the physical demise – Buffy, True Blood, Charmed, you name it, have prepared her for it – and no matter how prepared she was, the wet, sinking, rippling sound as the Dean’s skin melts off her bones and she collapses in on herself will stay with her for a long, long time.

However, none of them are prepared for the blast.

Beneath the blood, the light rushes like a sonic boom from every atom of Lophiiformes’s remains and hits them like a shockwave. They’re thrown back twenty feet in four directions.

She shields her head as best she can as she’s launched through the air.

 _Well, that was a kick_ , is the last thought that makes it to her mind before everything goes peacefully black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muhahaha, I love cliffhangers. Do you guys? :P Let me know which moments made you gasp or yell or cry! Only 2 chapters left to leave comments, so please do!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As warned before: brace yourselves, and remember to breathe.

The first thing she sees is stars.

Real, honest to God stars shining down on her.

She blinks, and the pain she thought she imagined shoots back through her body. She closes her eyes and remembers the stars.

It’s easier.

And it’s comforting, to think how small she is in comparison.

She frowns. It hurts.

Something moves beside her.

She should too.

She opens her eyes again and sees a cloud of dust carried on the fast winds above her.

“Ow…” a deep voice groans beside her, and she pushes herself up on her elbows.

Kirsch stirs next to her and moans as he pulls himself to his knees. His arms are scratched open and his nose is bleeding profusely.

The sight pulls her out of her stupor like a shot of adrenaline. She shifts back, and, though she’s in no condition to fight him off, puts up her dukes warily.

He looks at her hazily.

“Little nerd hottie? What – ow – what happened?”

His eyes are bright blue – his own – and the scar on his shoulder is crusted over with dried blood. She sighs in relief.

“You’re alright. You were possessed.” She lays a hand on his arm and hopes he doesn’t notice the blood under her nails. “But the Dean is gone now. We’re – ”

A sound suddenly echoes through the silence – a wolf howl so lamenting and plaintive it chills her to the bone.

Their gazes snap to the center of the pit.

A limping Danny, still in her wolf form, is dragging Carmilla towards them.

Laura’s heart stops.

Carmilla is in her human form again.

She scrambles to her feet as Danny pulls her closer, holding her with her teeth around her belt at the vampire’s hip and being careful not to break skin.

“Carm! No, no, no, no…”

She slides to her knees at the girl’s side, ignoring the screaming pain flashing through her and the sticky wetness sliding down her neck. She slides her hands around Carmilla’s body and cradles her in her arms, slowly turning her on her back. The girl moves without resistance, head lolling to the side and blood dripping from her mouth.

Her eyes are closed and she’s deathly pale – made worse by the abundant blood on her lips and chin.

 _Oh God_.

“Oh no. Oh God. Please be okay…”

Please let the blood be the Dean’s…

Danny nudges her still bloody snout gently against Carmilla’s chin and carefully licks away the blood, a gesture so unexpectedly tender Laura feels like she’s intruding. It’s not lost on her that she’d only witness this if things were truly dire, and her heart constricts in fear.

The vampire doesn’t stir.

Danny pulls away and flattens her ears, another mournful cry starting in her throat.

“No! Stop it! She’s not – just stop!” she snaps furiously.

Danny looks up at her, eyes wide and regretful, and she knows she’s snapping at the wrong person, but she can’t – she won’t –

Danny retreats, head low.

She lifts her arms, holding up Carmilla’s unresponsive weight, and presses a hand to the girl’s face. She wipes away the rest of the blood until only her lips still shine red. “Carm, please.”

Her skin is deathly cold – so unlike the night before when she’d been warmth and comfort and home. She hadn’t expected her to be – warm that is. Vampires were supposed to be cold, right? That’s what all the books say. Pale face, cold skin, empty hearts. Only one of those was accurate.

Now, two.

A hand circles her elbow. “Laura,” Danny mutters – human again, but lips and chin still coated in blood and eyes just as beseeching.

She looks up at her, feeling suddenly lost.

Danny tenses her jaw and shakes her head, resigned. “She’s gone.”

It’s not the answer she wants – not any answer she can accept – and she pulls out of the girl’s grip defiantly. “No!” she cries. “She promised!”

“Listen, the Power killed her when the she killed the Light.”

“But JP said – ”

“JP was wrong.”

As she watches, the last bit of color drains from Carmilla’s peaceful face like dissolving blood beneath her skin.

 _Blood_.

The thought hits her hard, simultaneously heavy with memories, and light with sudden hope.

“Blood. She needs blood.” Her voice is high and frantic and she doesn’t blame Danny for tightening her hand.

“No, Laura, it’s too late,” Danny insists with wide, pitying eyes.

She shakes loose and scrambles around her desperately, searching with her hands.

“No!”

She needs to find something to – anything for –

“It won’t work this time.”

She looks up, eyes defiant. “The Power of Hastur was supposed to live on! It’ll work!”

It has to work.

Her fingers brush a cold shaft – a crossbow bolt – and they tighten around it.

It has to work.

She places the tip against her wrist and pulls it down with a cry of pain.

“Laura, no!”

Danny snatches back the arrow, but she’s too late. Without hesitation, Laura slides a hand under Carmilla’s neck – her skin so cold, _too_ cold – lifts her gently, and places her freely bleeding wrist against her lips like a kiss.

She hopes against hope that _this_ won’t be their last.

The blood gushes into the vampire’s open mouth and quickly flows over.

She watches. She waits.

Carmilla doesn’t swallow.

Oh God.

“No…”

Danny’s hand closes over her wrist, staunching the bleeding, offering comfort. But she doesn’t want it.

“No!” She pulls away, and Danny’s fingers slip on her blood. She stares down at Carmilla, sight beginning to shimmer with unshed tears she can’t push back. “Come on, you stupid vampire. Drink the blood. Drink my blood.” Her voice breaks. “Wake up and stop messing with me.”

Carmilla’s lips stay lightly parted, covered in blood, and her eyes stay closed, serene.

A sob pushes into her throat, and the hope that came with the blood can’t hold it down. “No…”

“Laura.”

Danny’s fingers brush lightly on her elbow, leaving two small smears of blood, and she slides into the touch with a sob. Danny’s arms come around her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and she sounds it. Against all odds, she sounds it.

Laura lets go, giving in to the moment she knows will alter her forever, and tears stream down her face as she sobs into Danny’s shoulder – wet, heaving cries that twist something deep and painful inside her as they come. She thinks it might be her heart.

“She said she wouldn’t – she said she refused,” she murmurs between sobs.

“I know. I heard. She didn’t want to,” Danny says desolately.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The Power of Hastur was supposed to live on, as the god had intended. Carmilla had accepted the sacrifice the first time around – she’d passed the test. She’d stabbed the Light knowing she wouldn’t survive it. She’d _passed_. And the malevolent bastard of a deity hadn’t kept up his end of the deal.

Something shuffles in the corner of her vision, and she lifts her head from Danny’s shoulder to see a battle-weary Perry and a weak but relatively uninjured LaFontaine looking on with wide eyes. The crossbow drops to the floor with a hollow clank.

“Oh no.”

Laura closes her eyes, presses back a fresh wave of tears, and looks back at Carmilla.

She’s the picture of peace. Save for the blood on her lips and a few smudges of dirt on her arms, she’s as immaculate, beautiful, and honestly, _regal,_ as always, and her skin is as pale as snow.

Laura pushes back the broken sob at the fact that the evil stepmother in _this_ story won.

Stupid, stupid vampire.

She can’t help it. She won’t let her touch of blood to lips be the last kiss they have. She extricates herself from Danny’s embrace and pulls back sharply when Danny’s fingers tighten over her frayed wrist.

“Laura…”

“I need to say goodbye.”

The blood drips down her fingers when Danny lets go, looking on with heartbroken, gleaming eyes more like her lupine alter ego than the girl she’s returned to being.

Her vision is blurry when she leans close, and she wipes at her tears angrily. She doesn’t want to miss this. As much as it hurts. Their last goodbye had been as silent, but she’d closed her eyes against the sight – refusing. Now, she needs her eyes wide open.

She brushes away a strand of hair from the girl’s forehead and traces her cheek tenderly. She could be sleeping. She’d looked as calm the morning they’d first woken up in each other’s arms. All it had taken to wake her up was a lingering kiss to her cheek, and the vampire had smiled so subtly she’d had to look again to know she really was awake.

It’s not what she should be thinking, but she can’t help it. She only has so many memories to bring. They’d both hoped for more.

She presses back the sob and leans down. The goodbye is gentle – a chaste brush of lips to lips.

She feels warmth against her lips – a flash, a spark – but then it’s gone, and she pulls back knowing in her heart it was hope, nothing more. She searches the girl’s silent face with shimmering eyes, taking in the familiar curve of her cheek, the expressive arc of her eyebrows, the dark smudge of mascara on peacefully quiet lashes.

The kiss was as tender as yesterday morning. She looks again, but this time, there’s no secret smile tugging at her lips.

Both their lips are sticky with blood. But Carmilla’s are unmoving.

She swallows a sob. “Bye,” she murmurs, and turns away.

Danny is there, and it’s not enough, how could it be enough – but she doesn’t grab for her bleeding wrist again and her arms are unassuming and freely given, so it’s something. Something she can hold onto when the world’s pulled the rug out from under her feet again.

Perry’s hand brushes her shoulder, murmuring “I’m so sorry, sweatpea,” and LaFontaine and Kirsch look on miserably from a distance.

Her friends. She’s got them.

The victory. She has that.

Just not Carmilla.

Not the girl she might possibly have loved.

Not anymore.

She presses her face into Danny’s shoulder and whimpers – and almost misses the way someone coughs – a wet, sputtering and highly irritated sound.

“Ugh, are you trying to poison me?”

She whips back around, suddenly rapidly beating heart shooting into her throat.  

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Carmilla murmurs with a grim, bloody smile.

“Carm!” she cries in – oh god, relief doesn’t even begin to cover it. She rushes forward, gathering the vampire in her arms and holding her as tight as her measly human arms can hold. It’s not nearly tight enough, and she feels the sobs rise back into her throat and she’s still crying, sobbing into the embrace, even as she feels Carmilla’s warmth returning.

“Good god, cherrylips,” Carmilla says with a wet chuckle when she gives in to Laura’s embrace. “Give the bastard’s Power a moment to kick in, why dontcha?”

She pulls back with wide, disbelieving eyes – still wet – and takes in Carmilla’s equally surprised face.

 “Hey.”

Carmilla’s lips turn up in a smile. The familiarity of it all clenches at her heart. “Hey.”

Blood dribbles from her lips, and her grin is bloody, but it doesn’t take away from how incredibly _cocky_ it is. And familiarity and déjà vu and a dollop of hope might be sweetening the surreal moment, but goddamnit if Carmilla isn’t trying to get away with it all.

 _God_ –

“Damn you!” Laura exclaims, nostrils flaring lividly and eyes wide – _still_ crying for God’s sake and the tears are a terrible betrayal because she is _pissed_ – and she shoves Carmilla back to the ground. “Stop _doing_ that!”

Carmilla’s smile only widens as she collects herself on her elbows, and she wipes at the blood on her chin. “What? Choking on your ridiculously saccharine blood?”

She breathes out heavily. If she hadn’t just come back alive, she could just _kill_ her.

“You _died_. _” Be still my heart_ – her fingers tense into fists – _and my hands._ “ _Again!”_

“Cupcake, dramatic resurrections are totally my thing,” Carmilla murmurs with a teasing smile. “Three and counting…”

Stupid, stupid vampire.

With a sigh of utter relief and absolute frustration, she grabs Carmilla by both cheeks and pulls her in for a hard, lingering kiss. Carmilla – shaky and somewhat pained though she looked – responds immediately, as though it’s _this_ kiss that’s really resurrecting her. Their post-return-from-the-dead-after-seriously-having-mourned-their-death-already kisses are the most intense they may ever have, because when they pull apart, Carmilla’s rosy cheeks almost match Laura’s, and Laura sighs in relief, sliding her hands to Carmilla’s neck.

“Actually, scratch that last,” Carmilla mutters with a smile, pulling herself up by pulling herself against Laura. “Someone resurrect me again quick – I’ve ended up in heaven.”

Laura laughs. “Seriously? Here I thought I was dating a bloodsucking, brooding badass _._ ”

“And I thought I was dating a lovable small-town sweetheart. You are _revolting_.” The vampire grimaces and gestures to the blood smeared on their lips and dripping down her arm. “Seriously, you’d almost think my mother succeeded in turning you.” Laura shoves her away with a laugh, and the vampire pulls herself up to sitting.

“You _are_ pretty disgusting,” Danny pipes up with a lopsided smile beside them when there’s a respectable distance between them, and reaches forward to wipe away a drop of blood from her chin. “Here – ”

“Hands off, Jacob Black,” Carmilla says, hiding a smile that Danny doesn’t catch.

Danny pulls back, stunned, and clearly more than a little hurt.

Laura smiles. Carmilla really has a way with nicknames, because clearly – werepuppy.

The vampire laughs heartily. “I’m kidding.” She grins wickedly. “Sort of.” She brushes the blood Danny had reached for off her chin and smiles at Danny approvingly. “You’ve got quite the pit-bull schnaz, White Fang.”

Danny smiles in relief. “Right back at ya, Akasha.”

A beat.

“Thanks.” Carmilla’s smile is too wide to just be in response to the compliment, and Danny nods graciously.

“So, um, my memory’s pretty fuzzy,” Kirsch suddenly pipes up, cradling both his bleeding arms and looking between everyone for help. “And I just wanted to clear up – I mean… Danny – you’re like a… like a werewolf or something?” he asks carefully.

The group looks at each other incredulously, slow smiles creeping on their faces. And then Carmilla laughs – a completely unexpected freeing sound – and everyone else follows.

From the corner of her eyes, she just catches Kirsch’s mischievous grin and playful banter after Danny confirms her dual nature and the Zeta recites theatrically: “Both bro and psycho. Both gay and straight. Both wolf and girl. You know, I bet you’re just indecisive – about a _lot_ …” , as well as Danny’s responding laugh. LaFontaine limps towards them, clutching their head and grimacing, and she’s pretty sure muttering something along the lines of “I missed it _again_?” before Perry runs over and starts fussing over them – which LaFontaine promptly cuts off by pulling her in for a kiss.

Carmilla laughs at them, but Laura’s got eyes only for the girl she’s gathered back in her arms, whose laugh is as liberating from the burden of responsibility and terror as the memory of the Dean’s demise, and whose sparkling eyes are making her fall as hard in love with her as any of her kisses.

Carmilla turns away from the celebrating friends and looks at her. “We won,” she says simply.

 “Yeah.”

Carmilla’s smile grows impossibly brighter and just a little impish. “Now what?”

Laura smiles slyly. She’s got an idea. “Trivial Pursuit?” she suggests innocently.

Carmilla laughs and kisses the smile from her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Goodness! Yes, there will be an epilogue, but the action, the plot, the _story_ is concluded! 
> 
> Please leave a comment! It means so much!


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue.

She stares at the camera, frowns seriously, and takes a deep, grim breath. “…and that’s how Carmilla Karnstein died.”

A derisive snort sounds behind her.

“I’m in frame, dumbass,” Carmilla drawls from where she’s sprawled on her bed.

She snorts.

Right.

“Shush, I’m getting to the good part.”

Predictably, Carmilla does anything but _shush._ She should know the futility of training a cat by now.

“Let me guess,” the vampire says sarcastically. “The part where you woke me up with – ” she clasps her hands and sighs dramatically “‘True Love’s Kiss’?”

She snorts again.

They’re not getting anywhere like this.

“You can act all cynical if you want, but it sure worked, didn’t it?” she points out with a teasing smile.

Carmilla huffs and lifts her book in front of her face. Laura’s pretty sure it’s to hide her begrudging but completely adoring smile.

She turns back to the camera. “Apparently, Hastur, the sneaky little bastard, wove together quite a spell when he blessed that sword.” She tilts her head with a smile. “With his blood, and if you recall, a _kiss._ ”

“Tacky much?” Carmilla grumbles.

Laura ignores her. “JP said it probably had to do with blood magic rules and only activating a blessing by repeating its casting, but if you ask me…” she pauses dramatically and glances at Carmilla, who puts the book down in the brief silence. “…Hastur just wanted his champion to be truly worthy.”

“And to get lucky after surviving,” Carmilla pipes up suggestively, grinning.

She smiles and tilts her head. “No – to be worthy of love.”

She doesn’t turn, but in the video feed on the screen, she can see Carmilla’s suggestive expression freeze on her face. She looks up with wide, startled eyes, and her lips slowly pull up in a vulnerable, hopeful smile so filled with promises that it completely derails Laura’s breathing rhythm.

Yes, idiot. Love.

She smiles fondly and continues. “Given the bureaucratic, infrastructural, and paranormal upheaval of the last few days, the Silas Board of Advisors has decided to extend Reading Week – indefinitely.”

Carmilla gives a sign of the horns without looking up from her reading. _Rock on._

“Kirsch is recovering, slowly. He’s also leaving me presents. Cover-up only does so much for bruises, after all,” she concedes awkwardly, running her fingers across her neck.

“And hickeys,” Carmilla adds oh-so-helpfully.

Her viewers did _not_ need to know that.

“Danny’s trying to ease his completely unnecessary guilt, and they’ve called some of their sorority and fraternity siblings for an emergency cheer-up hike in the Alps together.” She pauses and frowns thoughtfully. “I hope they don’t kill each other. Honestly, I’m not sure who would be more in trouble nowadays.” 

“The Zeta’s,” Carmilla says.

“Mmm, seems _someone_ is pretty impressed by Danny’s skills after all, huh?”

Carmilla grunts noncommittally.

“LaFontaine ended things with JP,” she continues, “and is going home with Perry for Reading Week. I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve got my fingers crossed there.”

“Maybe JP will turn his heartbreak to hacking. I hear Anonymous is hiring,” Carmilla interjects with a laugh at her own joke. Laura can’t help smiling.

“And the two of us?” She tilts her head and grins eagerly. “We’re going on an overdue, impromptu vacation. Where I will make sure to have absolutely no reception. Or internet. Or risk of ancient evil rearing its ugly head and going after my girlfriend again. I’ve had quite enough of that to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”

She twirls once in her chair and plunks an elbow on her desktop. “So, my gentle viewers – goodnight, good luck, and don’t go bumping things in the night – ” She pauses, and looks over at Carmilla. “ – they might bump back.”

She smirks. She sure hopes so.

Carmilla’s sly smile echoes her thoughts exactly.

“Laura Hollis, signing off – for good.”

With a click and a smile, she turns the camera off. She sits back in her chair and laces her fingers thoughtfully, soaking up the sudden wave of relief and metaphorical silence in her mind. Carmilla looks at her curiously, but doesn’t comment.

The airplane tickets on her desk catch her eye, and she fingers them excitedly – their escape to well-deserved freedom.

Honestly, _well-deserved_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

With an enthusiastic squeak, she jumps up, slides her suitcase onto her bed, and begins mentally ticking off her packing list.

Suddenly, two arms circle around her waist from behind, and she stills with a fond smile.

“You know, Venice was technically numero dos on the bucket list...” Carmilla purrs in her ear.

“Was it?” She turns slowly in her arms, eyes wide and innocent. “Was there something before that?”

Carmilla raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

She bites her lip in a mock thoughtful expression. “What was it again? I can’t remember…”

She may have underestimated her acting skills, because Carmilla’s eyebrows just climb higher and higher on the girl’s forehead.

Or else Carmilla _still_ thinks of her as innocent…

“Oh!” she exclaims finally. “Well, gosh darn it, I totally reserved a room with two singles.”

Carmilla’s expression is so suddenly forlorn and incredulous, she has to purse her lips to cover a laugh. “You’re kidding right?”

She drops the act with a smile and pulls Carmilla in for a kiss. “Yes, I’m kidding,” she murmurs against her lips.

Carmilla relaxes and kisses her back. “Good,” she says after a moment, and her arms tighten around her waist. “Because, just so we’re clear…” She nudges her nose against hers, and the girl’s lips graze deliciously across her own. “We’re totally combining item one and item two.”

Carmilla pulls her in for another lingering kiss that make her knees go weak so quickly, Laura is suddenly extremely thankful the girl is holding on to her.

When she pulls away, she’s breathless and blushing. Her eyes flutter open, and she stares into bright brown ones filled with affection. Carmilla’s smile is brilliant – at the kiss or at the idea of what’s to come, she’s not sure – but there is one thing she knows for sure:

“Darling, scratch it off your bucket list, because for however long we can put up with each other – ‘doing _me’_ , as you so _eloquently_ put it… a total given.”

This time – and she hopes, for many times to come – _she’s_ the one that kisses Carmilla’s smile from her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!
> 
> A huge, huge thank you goes out to YouMadeMeSeeIt for her priceless excitement about the little previews I sent her, her endless help on plot and scenarios, her beta-ing, and her SCREAMING about the last chapter. She was totally my muse on this (yes, blush, you). Also, half of this was written to the soundtrack of [her amazing video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcuBAPZMaM). If you’ve liked and commented on this, please head over to her YouTube channel and leave some love, because without her this story would never have happened.
> 
> Also, thank you to everyone who stuck with this story! I know it isn't epically long, but it's the longest one I've published, and it meant so much to have people excited for every new chapter and leaving comments. If you have a moment, I'd love a last one!


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